Hi Ron, congratulations on the release. My question is: how will you make money? I see you are the CEO, there is a company, and you have employees. Crunchbase links to news articles that make it seem like you've raised $24MM. Maybe I'm just missing it, but I can't see any pricing information on your landing page or in your docs. After I log in to FloxHub with my Github profile, I don't see any billing options. What is your plan?
Show HN: Flox 1.0 – Open-source dev env as code with Nix
11–20 of 201 posts
Re: Show HN: Flox 1.0 – Open-source dev env as code with Nix
#12What is the benefit of using Flox over plain nix-shell or nix develop?
Put another way, I would think that individual engineers would be better off learning the underlying tech and the tools provided that go with them. I think it's very possible that Flox (or devenv or...) reaches EOL, or ceases to track nixpkgs appropriately, or any of the other ways that software rots. Where nix develop is going to last as long as Nix Flakes do, and there's incentive to provide a migration path to whatever's next.
Even more important: every abstraction is going to leak. Maybe the Flox CLI "looks" cleaner or whatever, but in the end you'll still need to learn Nix to use it effectively. Why learn twice as much stuff as you need?
Re: Show HN: Flox 1.0 – Open-source dev env as code with Nix
#13I do not understand the usecase. If I need a particular environment I will install it in LXC.
Re: Show HN: Flox 1.0 – Open-source dev env as code with Nix
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
or https://www.jetpack.io/devbox/ :ˆ)
Ah! The modern hell of choice. Can’t these peeps just work together and make one great thing instead of fragmenting over and over? I think I know the answers but have to ask anyway, hope to learn.
Devenv and devbox are completely different. Devenv will merely automatically install envars into your env from a plugin (one of which handles nix). If you aren't using devenv you are missing out, irrespective of whether you use nix. Devbox is a direct alternative to Flox.
Edit: all incorrect, I got confused. There are indeed to many of these Nix wrappers.
Re: Show HN: Flox 1.0 – Open-source dev env as code with Nix
#15What’s the current relationship of the project with DE Shaw and how did you end up making a company on top of this?
Re: Show HN: Flox 1.0 – Open-source dev env as code with Nix
#16I really don't understand why should I use this over plain nix, can you elaborate?
I just want clean, repeatable environments for different projects. I’ve tried getting into Nix a few times but I always get overwhelmed by all the different things it is/does. This looks 100x simpler to me.
Re: Show HN: Flox 1.0 – Open-source dev env as code with Nix
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah! The modern hell of choice. Can’t these peeps just work together and make one great thing instead of fragmenting over and over? I think I know the answers but have to ask anyway, hope to learn.
Devenv and devbox are completely different. Devenv will merely automatically install envars into your env from a plugin (one of which handles nix). If you aren't using devenv you are missing out, irrespective of whether you use nix. Devbox is a direct alternative to Flox. Edit: all incorrect, I got confused. There are indeed to many of these Nix wrappers.
I think you're discussing direnv, not devenv -- which appears to be a direct alternative to Flox
Re: Show HN: Flox 1.0 – Open-source dev env as code with Nix
#18[deleted]
Re: Show HN: Flox 1.0 – Open-source dev env as code with Nix
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah! The modern hell of choice. Can’t these peeps just work together and make one great thing instead of fragmenting over and over? I think I know the answers but have to ask anyway, hope to learn.
Devenv and devbox are completely different. Devenv will merely automatically install envars into your env from a plugin (one of which handles nix). If you aren't using devenv you are missing out, irrespective of whether you use nix. Devbox is a direct alternative to Flox. Edit: all incorrect, I got confused. There are indeed to many of these Nix wrappers.
I think you're referring to direnv as opposed to devenv.sh which does compete in the same space. Numentide was working on one too.
I am using devenv.sh at work, at home I just nix develop (but this doesn't do services, but there was a flake util just announced that adds support for that I need to check out).
Re: Show HN: Flox 1.0 – Open-source dev env as code with Nix
#20Hi Ron, congratulations on the release. My question is: how will you make money? I see you are the CEO, there is a company, and you have employees. Crunchbase links to news articles that make it seem like you've raised $24MM. Maybe I'm just missing it, but I can't see any pricing information on your landing page or in your docs. After I log in to FloxHub with my Github profile, I don't see any billing options. What i…
Appreciate the call out. Regarding pricing, bringing forward what you saw today for free and open source, was a major part of why I started Flox, with much more to come into it.
What we released today will be free forever (both the open source client and the FloxHub services for sharing environments). We plan on expanding the offering to include a more robust private software catalogs that layers on top of the OOTB Flox Catalog that ships with Flox. If you are interested in publishing your output or need revised versions of open source packages in Flox then it'll be very easy to have your own catalog to compliment the always-free Flox Catalog that Flox ships with today. Beyond that, we are focused on a number of services that help bring Nix's build to the enterprise.
Over time we intend to sell a solution to enterprises - through subscriptions and services - so they can more effectively manage expansive and fragmented software supply chains. As part of developing custom tooling for enterprises, we think it's reasonable for them to participate in funding for that work.