Welcome to nix.dev#
nix.dev is the home of official documentation for the Nix ecosystem. It is maintained by the Nix documentation team.
If you’re new here, install Nix and begin your journey with our tutorial series!
What can you do with Nix?#
The following list illustrates some of what can be achieved with the Nix ecosystem:
Easy installation of software over URLs.
Easy transfer of software environments between computers.
Avoidance of version conflicts with already installed software.
Installing software from source code.
Strong support for software auditability.
Remote builds.
Remote deployments.
Atomic upgrades and rollbacks.
Who is Nix for?#
Nix is a tool for people who both need computers to do exactly as intended, repeatably, far into the future, and who are familiar with command line interfaces and plain text editors.
You don’t have to be a professional software developer and you don’t need formal education in informatics to greatly benefit from Nix. However, experience with complex software projects and knowing some informatics helps with appreciating why it’s useful and how it works. And it helps with learning how to use it effectively and how to make improvements.
You probably won’t want to go back to a world without Nix if you’re a:
Full-stack or back-end developer
Test engineer
Embedded systems developer
DevOps engineer
System administrator
Data scientist
Natural scientist
Student of a technical field
Open source software enthusiast