Nx

Nx is the power tool that makes monorepos with multiple apps and libraries manageable. It understands your entire dependency graph (which projects depend on which) and uses that to run only what's affected by your changes. Builds, tests, linting: Nx caches everything and skips what hasn't changed.

The core Nx CLI and all open source plugins are free under MIT. Nx Cloud (remote caching and distributed task execution) has a free tier and paid plans starting at $300/mo for Pro. Nx installs as an npm package. No hosting required. It reads your repo structure and generates a project graph automatically. Setup takes 30 minutes for an existing repo. The VS Code extension is useful. It visualizes your dependency graph.

Solo developers: Nx is valuable even on smaller repos. The caching saves time immediately. Small teams: the free Nx Cloud tier shares cache across your team. Growing teams: this is where Nx shines. Affected detection and distributed execution cut CI from hours to minutes.

The catch: Nx is more complex than Turborepo. More features means more configuration, more concepts to learn, more opinions about how your repo should be structured. If all you need is cached builds, Turborepo is simpler. If you need code generation, project constraints, and module boundaries, Nx is the answer.