### Switching the MPI implementation {#sec-overlays-alternatives-mpi}
All programs that are built with [MPI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_Passing_Interface) support use the generic attribute `mpi` as an input. At the moment Nixpkgs natively provides two different MPI implementations:
All programs that are built with [MPI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_Passing_Interface) support use the generic attribute `mpi` as an input. At the moment Nixpkgs natively provides the following MPI implementations:
-[Open MPI](https://www.open-mpi.org/)(default), attribute name