pipx
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 5 of 8 Python package managers by recommenders
Runs Python command-line tools in isolated environments so they stay separate and safe, with the virtual environment handled under the hood.
Runs Python command-line tools in isolated environments so they stay separate and safe, with the virtual environment handled under the hood.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 91%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 10 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Handles virtual environments automatically
“thankfully things like pipx make it easy these days”
Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “What Killed Perl?” “the venv part is then completely under the hood.”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Using Python for Scripting” Recommended as default for Python tools
“thankfully things like pipx make it easy these days”
Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “What Killed Perl?” “I'm going to suggest pipx by default”
Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Sqlit – A lazygit-style TUI for SQL databases” Simple interface with few options
“You only have to know how one of many options works, in order to get a working system.”
Comment from 2 Nov 2025 in “Hard Rust requirements from May onward” “It provides a higher-level interface, so something like this should work”
Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Sqlit – A lazygit-style TUI for SQL databases”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Itself managed by pip, which some reject
“which is itself managed by pip. I'm not going to do that.”
Comment from 22 May 2026 in “Uv is fantastic, but its package management UX is a mess”
Other Python package managers people recommend
The four most recommended other Python package managers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| uv | 533 | 100 | 84% | 12 | 1 yr9 owners | Approved |
| pip | 46 | 95 | 33% | 12 | 8 yrs3 owners | — |
| Poetry | 20 | 30 | 40% | 8 | — | — |
| Python venv | 17 | 10 | 63% | 10 | — | — |
| pipxThis page | 10 | 1 | 91% | 5 | — | Approved |
What people said
12 of the 13 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“which is itself managed by pip. I'm not going to do that.”
“Would pipx solve the problem?”
“the replacement feature (which third party tools like uv and pipx do provide)”
“every tool you installed with `pipx` breaking”
“pipx did almost all the work that I needed it to do for safely running utility scripts.”
“pipx is implemented in Python and packaged by Linux distributions”
“I'm going to suggest pipx by default”
“It provides a higher-level interface, so something like this should work”
“the venv part is then completely under the hood.”
“you can use Pipx to provision that global pip, and then you also have Pipx available”
“thankfully things like pipx make it easy these days”
“You only have to know how one of many options works, in order to get a working system.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.