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pkgsrc VS Jsonnet

Compare pkgsrc VS Jsonnet and see what are their differences

pkgsrc logo pkgsrc

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

Jsonnet logo Jsonnet

A powerful DSL for elegant description of JSON data.
  • pkgsrc Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-30
  • Jsonnet Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-26

pkgsrc features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Support
    pkgsrc is designed to be a portable package management system and can be used on a variety of Unix-like operating systems, including NetBSD, Solaris, Linux, and macOS. This cross-platform capability makes it a versatile tool for developers working in diverse environments.
  • Consistency Across Systems
    Using pkgsrc allows for a consistent package management experience regardless of the underlying operating system, reducing the learning curve and maintenance overhead for administrators managing multiple systems.
  • Comprehensive Package Collection
    pkgsrc offers a wide range of software packages, providing a robust collection that can meet diverse user needs from scientific libraries to web applications.
  • Quarterly Releases
    With quarterly releases, pkgsrc provides a balanced approach between stability and keeping software up to date, offering users new features regularly while maintaining reliability.
  • Flexible Build Options
    pkgsrc supports a flexible build system, allowing users to customize package builds with specific options or dependencies, tailored to their specific needs or system requirements.

Possible disadvantages of pkgsrc

  • Smaller Community
    Compared to other popular package management systems like apt (Debian/Ubuntu) or yum (RedHat/CentOS), pkgsrc has a relatively smaller community, which might affect the availability of support and community-driven improvements.
  • Potentially Older Software
    While pkgsrc maintains stable quarterly releases, it may occasionally lag behind other systems in terms of offering the very latest versions of certain software, which might not be ideal for users needing the newest features.
  • Manual Configuration
    Setting up pkgsrc might require manual interventions and configurations, which could pose a hurdle for users unfamiliar with its setup process or those who prefer more automated solutions.
  • Dependency Management
    Although pkgsrc is quite capable in dependency handling, some users may find its dependency resolution to be less automatic or seamless compared to other systems which offer more integrated solutions.
  • Performance Overhead
    Because it is designed to be cross-platform, there can be some performance overhead associated with using pkgsrc compared to native package managers that are optimized for specific operating systems.

Jsonnet features and specs

  • Configurability
    Jsonnet allows you to write configurations as code, enabling dynamic configuration generation and making it easier to manage complex configurations.
  • Extensibility
    Jsonnet supports functions and imports, enabling code reuse and modular configuration design across different files and projects.
  • JSON Compatibility
    Since Jsonnet is a JSON extension, it is fully compatible with JSON, meaning any valid JSON file is also valid in Jsonnet.
  • Reduce Repetition
    Jsonnet reduces redundancy through capabilities like variables and functions, helping to avoid repetitive configurations and boilerplate.
  • Final Manifest
    Jsonnet outputs a final manifest in JSON, providing a clean and widely-accepted data format that can be used directly by applications.

Possible disadvantages of Jsonnet

  • Learning Curve
    Jsonnet introduces new syntax and concepts (such as mixins and imports) that may require time to learn and adapt to, especially for developers familiar with plain JSON.
  • Tooling Support
    While gaining traction, Jsonnet still has limited tooling and IDE support compared to more established configuration languages or file formats.
  • Complexity in Parsing
    As a more expressive configuration language, Jsonnet may introduce complexity in parsing and understanding configuration files compared to using straightforward JSON.
  • Overhead
    The additional features and functionalities of Jsonnet can introduce computational overhead, potentially making it slower than using simple JSON for very massive configurations.

pkgsrc videos

pkgsrc on ChromeOS

More videos:

  • Review - Using pkgsrc for multi-platform deployments in heterogeneous environments, G Clifford Williams

Jsonnet videos

Jsonnet

More videos:

  • Review - Using Jsonnet to Package Together Dashboards, Alerts and Exporters - Tom Wilkie
  • Review - Webinar: Writing Less YAML – Using jsonnet and kubecfg to Manage Kubernetes Resources

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to pkgsrc and Jsonnet)
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Configuration Management
0 0%
100% 100
Package Manager
100 100%
0% 0
Front End Package Manager

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Jsonnet should be more popular than pkgsrc. It has been mentiond 38 times since March 2021. 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.

pkgsrc mentions (11)

  • Debian isn't waiting for 2038 to blow up, switches to 64-bit time for everything
    > Most open source software packages are also compiled for BSD variants, they switched to 64 bit time_t a long time ago and reported back upstream any problems. * NetBSD in 2012: https://www.netbsd.org/releases/formal-6/NetBSD-6.0.html * OpenBSD in 2014: http://www.openbsd.org/55.html For packaging, NetBSD uses their (multi-platform) Pkgsrc, which has 29,000 packages, which probably covers a large swath of... - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Our Audit of Homebrew
    > https://pkgsrc.smartos.org/install-on-macos/ Note that Pkgsrc is a NetBSD-derived project. * https://pkgsrc.org The Joyent folks leveraged it to allow their customers, who were perhaps not as familiar with Solaris/SmartOS, a larger pool of packages. Pkgsrc was running on Solaris before Joyent, Joyent built on top of it. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • Show HN: Brioche – A new Nix-like package manager
    Https://pkgsrc.org/ from netbsd runs on many systems. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Installing packages without an internet connection?
    It seems according to pkgsrc.org that pkgin might follow the PKG_PATH environment variable. You're supposed to set PKG_PATH="http://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/$(uname -p)/$(uname -r|cut -f '1 2' -d.)/All/", and according to uname(1), -p gives the processor architecture and -r gives the operating system [kernel] release. Source: over 3 years ago
  • pkgsrc.se is no more :(
    It seems like pkgsrc.org hasn’t got the news yet. Source: over 3 years ago
View more

Jsonnet mentions (38)

  • YAMLpp is dynamic,self-generating YAML
    OK, what we can do now? Use a preprocessing language guaranteed to produce valid syntax, like Jsonnet for json? That wil work, for sure. However, you have now a friction problem: it's new file format that requires implementing its own toolchain (Jsonnet is not json, so editor add-ons, parsers, interpreters, libraries, etc.) and you will need to drive the team through the learning curve of a language with its own... - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Levels of Configuration Languages
    Https://jsonnet.org/ I never heard of this before. This seems like the JSON I wish I really had. Of course at some point you could just use JavaScript. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Standard ML idiosyncrasies
    I've been reading the book Modern Compiler Implementation in ML lately. It's been helpful to brush up on some concepts while developing Tsonnet (my typed-aspiring Jsonnet flavor) and I hope to learn a ton more. However, I'm growing dissatisfied with some details -- not specifically the book, but the choice of the development environment. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Tsonnet, a humble beginning
    For the past 2 years, I've been working extensively with Jsonnet, a configuration language that augments JSON and helps eliminate repetition in our config files. It has its limits (many by design), which keeps the language simple to use. But there's one thing that keeps nagging at me when I'm deep in the code: what's the shape of the input or output of this function? And wouldn't it be great if we could type... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Refactor Terraform Resource Names By One Command
    Jsonnet: Use --jsonnet (-j) for advanced, programmatically controlled renaming logic. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing pkgsrc and Jsonnet, you can also consider the following products

Conda - Binary package manager with support for environments.

Dhall Configuration Language - A non-repetitive alternative to YAML

Homebrew - The missing package manager for macOS

JSON diff - Compare 2 JSON and find difference

Yay - Yay is an AUR helper written in go, based on the design of yaourt, apacman and pacaur.

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.