| conda-forge miniforge | Installs, runs, and updates packages and their dependencies. Uses conda, but with community maintained packages from conda-forge channel instead of commercially maintained packages. | 🟢 |
| uv | Fast dependency (and project) management tool. A drop-in replacement for venv. This will probably become our 🟢 tool, but for now we are playing cautious as there are some open bugs and features. If you’re comfortable using venv syntax we’d recommend this. | 🟠 |
| pipenv | Automatically creates and manages a virtualenv for your projects. | 🟠 |
| pixi | A fast drop-in replacement for conda. | 🟠 |
| pyenv | Lets you easily switch between multiple versions of Python. | 🟠 |
| virtualenv | Creates isolated Python environments, and offers more features than venv. | 🟠 |
| venv | Creates isolated Python environments. Fewer features than other tools, but very widely used and comes built into Python. | 🟠 |
| anaconda | Due to recent licensing ambiguity, we recommend avoiding anaconda and many of the default channels. We recommend installing miniforge and sticking to the conda-forge channel. | 🔴 |