Nx monorepo with per-app package.json (React, Angular, NestJS) while keeping full Nx benefits

[ak274]

We’ve been using Nx in an integrated workspace setup where all apps and libs share a single package.json at the root. This works well for a lot of use cases, but now we have a different requirement:

We want to keep the Nx-powered monorepo benefits (project graph, affected commands, caching, code generation, etc.).

At the same time, we need to develop three independent applications within the same workspace:

1. A React app
2. An Angular app
3. A NestJS backend

The key requirement is that each app should have its own package.json and manage its own dependencies autonomously, while still allowing for:

Shared dependencies and shared internal libraries where it makes sense

All the usual Nx advantages for orchestration, task running, and dependency graph analysis

I came across the Nx docs about “package-based” vs “integrated” workspaces, but it seems the package-based option is marked as deprecated. Right now I’m unsure what the recommended way is to set up a workspace where apps can have full autonomy (per-app dependencies and isolated node_modules) but still benefit from Nx’s tooling in a true monorepo setup.

What’s the best way to achieve this in Nx today? Should we combine Nx with something like pnpm workspaces or Yarn workspaces for per-project dependencies, or is there a modern Nx pattern for this kind of setup?