Software Alternatives & Reviews

MacPorts VS NixOS

Compare MacPorts VS NixOS and see what are their differences

MacPorts logo MacPorts

The MacPorts Project is an open-source community initiative to design an easy-to-use system for compiling, installing, and upgrading either command-line, X11 or Aqua based open-source software on the Mac OS X operating system.

NixOS logo NixOS

25 Jun 2014 . All software components in NixOS are installed using the Nix package manager. Packages in Nix are defined using the nix language to create nix expressions.
  • MacPorts Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-29
  • NixOS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-12

MacPorts videos

Linux Tools for your Mac. Package Management. HomeBrew, MacPorts, Fink

More videos:

  • Review - Install and Testing MacPorts on an M1 Mac
  • Review - Installing MacPorts on macOS Catalina

NixOS videos

First Impression of the NixOS Installation Procedure

More videos:

  • Review - Introduction to NixOS - Brownbag by Geoffrey Huntley
  • Review - NixOS 18.03 - A Configuration-focused GNU+Linux Distro

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to MacPorts and NixOS)
Front End Package Manager
Package Manager
19 19%
81% 81
Windows Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
14 14%
86% 86

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare MacPorts and NixOS

MacPorts Reviews

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NixOS Reviews

The 10 Best Immutable Linux Distributions in 2024
Why it’s on the list: NixOS uses the Nix package manager, which treats packages as isolated from each other. This unique approach to package management virtually eliminates “dependency hell”.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, NixOS seems to be a lot more popular than MacPorts. While we know about 246 links to NixOS, we've tracked only 5 mentions of MacPorts. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

MacPorts mentions (5)

  • Need help with running OpenBSD on VirtualBox
    Brew & macports have libvirt & virt-manager that are used to manage qemu via GUI. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Brew Is a Bad Neighbor
    Or instead of all this, try MacPorts[0], which in my experience has 99% of what you need. The biggest drawbacks are less support from quite niche packages (the ones that sets up its own homebrew tap), and a bit slower updates. But then I found it bearable much more than homebrew’s downsides. [0]: https://macports.org. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • How to prevent WireGuard from starting up (menubar) on MacOS?
    You can install wireguard-go and wireguard-tools (or boringtun, which is Cloudflare's userspace implementation) using either MacPorts or Brew. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Newbie Problem with MacOS Terminal Stuff
    That being said, I'm going to assume that you're working on MacO. Flatpaks aren't going to be an option, that's only going to work if you're using Linux (like Fedora, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Arch, Mint, and so on). If you need to install HandBrake, you may want to consider using macports.org, or brew.sh, these are projects that provide additional libraries and packages for MacOS, this way you can install additional... Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Top 10 trending github repos of the week🚽.
    On macOS you can also install the latest release with MacPorts:. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago

NixOS mentions (246)

  • I use NixOS for my home-server, and you should too!
    As we covered in my last post, NixOS is a amazing Linux distribution for creating stable and declared environments. Now while this is amazing for a desktop setup, it is also perfect for a home-server or home-lab. - Source: dev.to / 2 days ago
  • Colima k8s nix setup
    Nix is a cross-platform package manager. It uses the nix programming language. Nix and NixOs are often used in the same context, but while the first is a package manager, the latter is a linux distribution based on nix. - Source: dev.to / 7 days ago
  • NixOs - Your portable dev enviroment
    Today I want to talk to you about Nixos. What is it? Nixos is a declarative and reproducible OS, partly taking the words used on their own page. What does that mean? - Source: dev.to / 16 days ago
  • Nix – A One Pager
    Software developers often want to customize: 1. Their home environments: for packages (some reach for brew on MacOS) and configurations (dotfiles, and some reach for stow). 2. Their development shells: for build dependencies (compilers, SDKs, libraries), tools (LSP, linters, formatters, debuggers), and services (runtime, database). Some reach for devcontainers here. 3. Or even their operating systems: for... - Source: Hacker News / 17 days ago
  • Tools for Linux Distro Hoppers
    Hopping from one distro to another with a different package manager might require some time to adapt. Using a package manager that can be installed on most distro is one way to help you get to work faster. Flatpak is one of them; other alternative are Snap, Nix or Homebrew. Flatpak is a good starter, and if you have a bunch of free time, I suggest trying Nix. - Source: dev.to / 27 days ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing MacPorts and NixOS, you can also consider the following products

Homebrew - The missing package manager for macOS

GNU Guix - Like Nix but GNU.

pkgsrc - pkgsrc is a framework for building over 17,000 open source software packages.

Homebrew Cask - Install with ease. Your software is just one command away from being ready and raring to go. Forget all about babysitting the install process step by step, from website to cleanup. ls /usr/local/Caskroom google-chrome .

Chocolatey - The sane way to manage software on Windows.

Conda - Binary package manager with support for environments.