I've been getting into Nix/NixOS for the last couple months, and I keep seeing [devenv](https://devenv.sh) and [devbox](https://www.jetpack.io/devbox/) mentioned as good tools for local development.
The main difference between them seems to be that devenv uses the Nix language and containers whereas devbox uses JSON and wraps `nix-shell`. There are probably more differences I'm missing.
So far I've only found one HN thread with more than a couple comments that compare the two: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33655542
I wanted to see what the community thought; which tool do you prefer, and why?
One aspect I would emphasize about Devbox is that we're focused on providing some of the best properties of Nix (easy to install packages, reproducibility, and ephemeral dev environments) without requiring developers to master the Nix DSL.
We've also added features that help with some rougher parts of Nix, like the ability to search and pin specific package versions using `pkg@version` in your config. See our post here for more details: https://www.jetpack.io/blog/0-5-0-install-nix-packages-by-ve...
We've heard from teams that adopt Nix and Devbox that this simplified JSON config helps with onboarding developers. If you're looking for a way to share your local dev environment with other developers, Devbox could be a good choice.