Paul Krill
Editor at Large

Astral unveils ‘extremely fast’ Python package installer

news
Feb 16, 20241 min

Rust-based uv package manager promises to be a drop-in replacement for pip and up to 115x faster than pip when running with a warm cache.

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Astral, which makes high-performance Python tools such as the Ruff linter, has launched uv, an “extremely fast” Python package installer and resolver written in Rust.

Designed as a drop-in replacement for pip and pip-tools, uv is ready for production use today in projects built around those workflows, Astral wrote in a blog post announcing the product. Developers can install uv via Astral’s stand-alone installers or from Pypl.

Like Ruff, uv was implemented with an obsessive focus on performance, Astral said. The company’s benchmarks show uv to be 8x to 10x faster than pip and pip-tools without caching, and 80x to 115x faster when running with a warm cache.

The package manager was also designed to pose minimal barriers to adoption. uv’s initial release centered on supporting pip and pip-tools APIs behind a uv pip interface, making uv usable by existing projects with no configuration required.

uv ships as a single static binary and supports modern Python packaging features including editable installs, Git dependencies, URL dependencies, local dependencies, constraint files, source distributions, and custom indexes. uv supports Linux, Windows, and macOS.

Paul Krill

Paul Krill is editor at large at InfoWorld. Paul has been covering computer technology as a news and feature reporter for more than 35 years, including 30 years at InfoWorld. He has specialized in coverage of software development tools and technologies since the 1990s, and he continues to lead InfoWorld’s news coverage of software development platforms including Java and .NET and programming languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, and Go. Long trusted as a reporter who prioritizes accuracy, integrity, and the best interests of readers, Paul is sought out by technology companies and industry organizations who want to reach InfoWorld’s audience of software developers and other information technology professionals. Paul has won a “Best Technology News Coverage” award from IDG.

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