Nix and Bazel - Understanding Build Tool Incompatibilities and Alternatives

Learn why Nix and Bazel are incompatible build tools in this technical conference talk from Canva's Jesse Schalken. Explore the challenges of integrating Nix as a package manager with Bazel, including issues with non-relocatable Nix artifacts breaking Bazel remote execution, Nix binary incompatibility with FHS standards, steep learning curves for engineers familiar with Bazel's testing framework, and performance bottlenecks in large monorepos. Discover why using Bazel with bzlmod is recommended over attempting to combine Nix and Bazel, particularly for large-scale development environments where build system efficiency and developer productivity are crucial.