Show HN: Devbox – Containers for better dev environments

FYI there's a well-starred, corporate-backed, similar functionality, Nix-based product with the same name:

https://github.com/jetify-com/devbox https://www.jetify.com/devbox

Looks like a really fun project. You might want to reconsider the name though, since there is this other devbox from Jetify https://www.jetify.com/devbox that also received quite some attention on HN a while ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32600821

We've been using devcontainers for this, as it's already got good support in vscode. Could you perhaps "elevator pitch" the main differences between devbox and devcontainers?

So this reinvents devcontainers? https://containers.dev

Why should we use yours? What does it do better or differently?

How does this compare to toolbx? (https://containertoolbx.org/)

I had a very strong personal opinion that, unless you expect frequent migrations or horizontal scaling, Docker is overkill and could be considered as bloat in many instances. After I joined my new company, I found out about devbox, and I love it. Now I use it for almost every personal project. It helps you to make the environment reproducible without sacrificing performance.

However, I use https://www.jetify.com/devbox.

I always like to see new projects using containers. Two questions:

- how is your devbox.json file different from a Dockerfile/Containerfile?

- does your project attempt to provide any isolation security-wise?

Hello!! All of your concerns have been addressed in a new commit of mine which is available to all of you now.

Added GPU pass‑through, engine‑agnostic containers (DEVBOX_ENGINE for Podman/rootless), and alternate config filenames to avoid Jetify collisions—while keeping a tiny, CLI‑first flow that works outside VS Code.

https://github.com/itzCozi/devbox/commit/d05c8980db7fb907f31...

erm, that name is already taken. https://jetify-com.vercel.app/docs/devbox/

I thought you are talking about https://github.com/jetify-com/devbox :D

Plugging my own tool. I use it for development and running semi-trusted or temporary tools, mounts the current/project dir for isolation, and shuts down automatically when it can.

Container Shell - https://github.com/jrz/container-shell

I've been using Docker containers for quite some time to do web dev work. The one thing I haven't yet set up is doing mobile dev in a docker environment.

Does devbox support mobile development - Flutter or ReactNative?

Would love to use something like this for NixOS as an escape hatch, but its debian only. DistroBox always gives me trouble.

I don't get how containers address "dependency hell". Is there some language that only supports installing libraries system wide? I've used a lot of different languages and yet to come across one.

I've worked on projects where the original dev has used containers for everything. It's super clunky and annoying. I don't want to use a different bash config just for working on that project. I've set my own up for a reason. All it makes me wonder is what are you afraid of? Why do you feel the need to isolate dev projects to this extent?

OP should consider changing their alias.

I’ve been doing a version of this using bash scripts for a long time! Thanks for making it

There are already dev containers

It's good that we get more options. I like ddev, will try this as well.

how does it compare to testcontainers? https://www.npmjs.com/package/testcontainers

Amazing amazing project, thank you for sharing this

There is also Devpod with a nice UI.

https://devpod.sh/

I am afraid that despite all these options for containers, I still use my Vagrant scripts that build whole VMs based on my own schemes, use an apt package cache on the host and manage .ssh/config for me to make VSC remotes more seamless.

Almost all my stuff still runs on simple VMs because I cannot rely on my clients to take on more complex cloud infrastructure and I don't want to be stuck managing all of the things forever, so my life involves building customer VMs from build scripts that are adequately similar to my Vagrant boxes.

I use the VMs a lot for simple tests (e.g. of wordpress plugins and themes) so I have gone to the trouble of setting up Avahi with alias support, adding options for mailhog, different databases, different webserver setups I use for WP or Laravel or node.js, setting up an automated WP install etc.; so there are two or three starting configurations. I even had one for Magento before I realised I could be a lot happier without Magento in my life.

I guess it looks a fair bit like devcontainers now, and I should consider migrating over to that. But it's solid and under my control and that counts for a lot.

Anything to do with "dependency hell", I can't see a better solution than Nix.