Python – Practical Difference Between pip and conda

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I saw other questions regarding difference between pip and conda, but it is not clear to me yet, please consider that before marking as duplicate.

If I run pip install seaborn and conda install seaborn Will I get the same result ?

I can run pip install seaborn twice without any problem, but if I run pip install and then conda install do I get the same package duplicated in two different places ?

Conda and pip cannot be used interchangeably but what are examples of that ?

Best Answer

  • Both pip and conda install the package (pretty much) with the same end result. There may be minor differences, e.g. zipped egg or not, it depends a bit on how the conda package was created. The conda package is always a compiled binary distribution though, not a source distribution.
  • I don't think conda will install it in different places, it may well overwrite your pip package. But it's kind of risky because conda keeps nicely track of what's installed and figures out all dependencies betweeen all conda packages in the environment. You really want to limit yourself to conda packages and only install pip packages if you really have to. It's quite easy to create conda packages though from pip packages.
  • Not sure about "interchangeably", you can use them alongside each other. But pip and conda are not so aware of each other so you might run into trouble with say updating packages to new versions.

In summary: if you're using conda packages, best to stick with that. You get the best out of the conda ecosystem with it's package version and environment management.

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