> but does it require installing nix on mac?

yes:

    sh <(curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -L https://nixos.org/nix/install)

> also many people are not familiar with nix and brew does all i need

it's a good reason to learn Nix then: it will completely replace your brew and offer an ultimate build tool suitable for any software stack moving forward. And you'll get cross-platform and static Haskell builds.