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NixOS (and NixPkgs) is great, but there are still plenty of binary only packages from difficult to build projects like PhantomJS in the ecosystem. It takes a serious commitment to build complex projects in Nix and maintain them.

(edit) An example of binary packages in Nixpkgs: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/developmen...

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You can also build regular packages, no matter how complicated they are, by spanning an FHS environment. That's sort of a sandbox that simulates a regular Unix environment with whatever dependencies you need in the usual places (/bin, /usr, ...).

Of course, you loose some Nix advantages. But it's a great way to get a regular Unix environment for one-off things or desperate cases.

Should you really be installing programs that are impossible to build? Also phantomjs is discontinued.

That's a great question, but it does not invalidate the point that there is nothing about Nix that states that binary packages cannot and do not happen.

Try for example FHS environments. That should make it possible to install software in a conventional way.

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