Often, when you want to install a specific package (e.g., from the Nix Packages collection), subscribing to a channel is a bit cumbersome. And channels don’t help you at all if you want to install an older version of a package than the one provided by the current contents of the channel, or a package that has been removed from the channel. That’s when one-click installs come in handy: you can just go to the web page that contains the package, click on it, and it will be installed with all the necessary dependencies. For instance, you can go to and click on any link for the individual packages for your platform. The first time you do this, your browser will ask what to do with application/nix-package files. You should open them with /nix/bin/nix-install-package. This will open a window that asks you to confirm that you want to install the package. When you answer Y, the package and all its dependencies will be installed. This is a binary deployment mechanism — you get packages pre-compiled for the selected platform type. You can also install application/nix-package files from the command line directly. See for details.