22,642 brands across 404 indexes

virtualenv

Active

Overview

virtualenv is an open-source tool for creating isolated Python environments to manage dependencies without conflicts. It predates Python's built-in venv module and remains widely used for its flexibility across Python versions and platforms. The project is maintained under the Python Packaging Authority and supports Python 3.7+ as of recent releases.

History

virtualenv was created by Ian Bicking in 2007 as a solution for isolated Python package installations. It gained popularity in the Python ecosystem before Python 3.3 integrated a subset of its functionality as the venv standard library module in 2012. Maintenance transferred to the Python Packaging Authority (PyPA), with Bernát Gábor as the current maintainer; version 20.22 in April 2023 limited support to Python 3.7+.

Manufacturing

As open-source software developed collaboratively by volunteers worldwide, there is no physical manufacturing; code is hosted on GitHub and distributed via PyPI.

Notable Products

  • virtualenv - Command-line tool to create isolated Python environments with separate package installations.

Reputation

virtualenv is respected by Python developers for its reliability, cross-platform support, and extensive customization options compared to the standard venv. Professionals appreciate its backward compatibility and advanced features like interpreter discovery. Some criticism exists for its added installation step versus venv, though it remains a go-to for complex workflows.

Sources (6)
  1. https://man.archlinux.org/man/virtualenv.1.en
  2. https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv
  3. https://virtualenv.pypa.io
  4. https://pipenv.pypa.io
  5. https://pypi.org/project/virtualenv/
  6. https://docs.python.org/3/library/venv.html