Difference between `nixpkgs/nix` and `nixos/nix` images?

[austinbutler]

Would be nice to have this documented, like why use one over the other.

[ColdTeapot273K]

The difference is that nixos/nix (437MB uncompressed) actually includes nixpkgs so you can run something like nix-shell -p yazi.

While nixpkgs/nix(346MB uncompressed) and the rest (like nixpkgs/nix-flakes, nixpkgs/devenv) do not include nixpkgs, which is funny.

But nixpkgs/nix and the rest have tags for nixos releases (e.g. 25.05). While nixos/nix is tagged only with nix release only (2.32.4), which i find unfortunate.

I reckon nixos/nix is good base image for building containers from there (keep in mind it's actually alpine with nix, not nixos).
While nixpkgs/* images are only good as examples or utility images for multi-stage builds.