# Poetry

20 Hacker News commenters recommended Poetry and 30 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Python packaging tool many used happily before uv, valued for handling dependencies. Critics note it does not manage Python versions or virtual environments.

## Why people recommend it

- Best dependency manager before uv (3 comments): "Poetry was the best alt-package manager before uv came along." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47440076)) "I was using poetry pretty happily before uv came along. I'd probably go back." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47442310)) "The only major opinionated tools that were in use prior to uv were Conda, Pipenv and Poetry" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50220185))
- Handles dependency problems well (4 comments): "Tools like PDM, Poetry and uv handle them automatically for you" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46437896)) "Poetry and uv avoid this issue." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46397831)) "Poetry had already solved that." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47448535))
- Reliable for many users (3 comments): "I haven't had any problems with poetry or uv" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48525849)) "I actually have no issues Poetry" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47453091)) "Poetry is still quite useful." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47150600))
- Matched uv's speedups first (2 comments): "Poetry largely accomplished the same thing first with most of the speedups" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46399533)) "Poetry, & later Uv, are essential & invaluable milestones in that revolutionary story" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49057550))

## What people warn about

- Does not manage Python versions or venvs (2 comments): "poetry does a good job at managing your package, but decided not to manage python versions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47450754)) "they did a good job abstracting dependencies, but not venvs and Python version" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46434942))
- Dependency resolver gives frustrating failures (3 comments): "Poetry on the other hand always gives me one reason or another to beat my head against a wall" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48159355)) "its inability to resolve dependencies even for recent versions of pretty mainstream packages" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50225768)) "Poetry was a big improvement over pip but I don't believe the resolver was 100% correct" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49726937))
- Environment breaks unexpectedly over time (2 comments): "used Poetry and some other stuff that was just not working correctly on my computer" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47848599)) "my poetry's environment got bad for reasons I didn't understand every few months" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49715464))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [uv](https://hackerapproved.com/p/uv.md): 533 recommend
- [pip](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pip.md): 46 recommend
- [Python venv](https://hackerapproved.com/p/venv.md): 17 recommend
- [virtualenv](https://hackerapproved.com/p/virtualenv.md): 10 recommend
- [pipx](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pipx.md): 10 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Poetry", https://hackerapproved.com/p/poetry/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).