Poetry
Ranked 3 of 8 Python package managers by recommenders
Python packaging tool many used happily before uv, valued for handling dependencies. Critics note it does not manage Python versions or virtual environments.
Python packaging tool many used happily before uv, valued for handling dependencies. Critics note it does not manage Python versions or virtual environments.
50 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 20
- criticize it
- 30
- approval share
- 40%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 20 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 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
Best dependency manager before uv
“Poetry was the best alt-package manager before uv came along.”
Comment from 19 Mar 2026 in “Astral to Join OpenAI” “I was using poetry pretty happily before uv came along. I'd probably go back.”
Comment from 19 Mar 2026 in “Astral to Join OpenAI” “The only major opinionated tools that were in use prior to uv were Conda, Pipenv and Poetry”
Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “Bringing uv and ty together” Handles dependency problems well
“Tools like PDM, Poetry and uv handle them automatically for you”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Go Away Python” “Poetry and uv avoid this issue.”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “How uv got so fast” “Poetry had already solved that.”
Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “Thoughts on OpenAI acquiring Astral and uv/ruff/ty” - Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Trivy Under Attack Again: Widespread GitHub Actions Tag Compromise Secrets”
Reliable for many users
“I haven't had any problems with poetry or uv”
Comment from 14 Jun 2026 in “Python 3.14 garbage collection rigamarole” “I actually have no issues Poetry”
Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “Thoughts on OpenAI acquiring Astral and uv/ruff/ty” “Poetry is still quite useful.”
Comment from 25 Feb 2026 in “Ask HN: Why would anyone still use Poetry now that uv exists?” Matched uv's speedups first
“Poetry largely accomplished the same thing first with most of the speedups”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “How uv got so fast” “Poetry, & later Uv, are essential & invaluable milestones in that revolutionary story”
Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Pip install Postgres – no Docker/Brew/apt”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Does not manage Python versions or venvs
“poetry does a good job at managing your package, but decided not to manage python versions”
Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “Astral to Join OpenAI” “they did a good job abstracting dependencies, but not venvs and Python version”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Go Away Python” Dependency resolver gives frustrating failures
“Poetry on the other hand always gives me one reason or another to beat my head against a wall”
Comment from 16 May 2026 in “'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Package Manager Where This Regularly Happens” “its inability to resolve dependencies even for recent versions of pretty mainstream packages”
Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “Bringing uv and ty together” “Poetry was a big improvement over pip but I don't believe the resolver was 100% correct”
Comment from 16 Sep 2026 in “Java 27” Environment breaks unexpectedly over time
“used Poetry and some other stuff that was just not working correctly on my computer”
Comment from 21 Apr 2026 in “Jujutsu Megamerges for Fun and Profit” “my poetry's environment got bad for reasons I didn't understand every few months”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Java 27”
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 | — |
| PoetryThis page | 20 | 30 | 40% | 8 | — | — |
| Python venv | 17 | 10 | 63% | 10 | — | — |
| virtualenv | 10 | 5 | 67% | 6 | — | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 57 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Poetry had far fewer problems than Pipenv had”
“its inability to resolve dependencies even for recent versions of pretty mainstream packages”
“The only major opinionated tools that were in use prior to uv were Conda, Pipenv and Poetry”
“The worst part about this is someone still using poetry for python development.”
“Poetry was a big improvement over pip but I don't believe the resolver was 100% correct”
“my poetry's environment got bad for reasons I didn't understand every few months”
“Poetry, & later Uv, are essential & invaluable milestones in that revolutionary story”
“I haven't had any problems with poetry or uv”
“pure cancer from someone who has seen firsthand how it leads to mindless ceiling pinning deps”
“is so much more painful in uv than in poetry”
“Even Poetry wants you to install it via pipx, which is itself managed by pip.”
“Poetry on the other hand always gives me one reason or another to beat my head against a wall”
“used Poetry and some other stuff that was just not working correctly on my computer”
“some other stuff that was just not working correctly on my computer”
“They tend to solve this problem more elegantly and through their normal default workflows.”
“purposely added a feature to fail CI with a 1/10 chance because they wanted to depreciate a feature”
“it would choose Python 2 for some reason, despite me never having used it”
“I actually have no issues Poetry”
“they have bad taste obviously otherwise we'd all be using their project”
“poetry does a good job at managing your package, but decided not to manage python versions”
“Poetry's CLI would often, for me, just fall over and crash.”
“Poetry had already solved that.”
“Poetry and friends are so bad that many people continued just using pip”
“I was using poetry pretty happily before uv came along. I'd probably go back.”
“Poetry was the best alt-package manager before uv came along.”
“Poetry is still quite useful.”
“meta-dependencies (dependabot, pnpm/yarn, poetry/venv/pipenv, snap/flatpak)”
“Poetry, Pipenv, pyenv, venv and Conda were all fakers for me”
“Reject EVERYTHING ELSE for running / building py pip, poetry, conda ... etc.”
“fixed a lot of the issues poetry had without the hard ideological stance behind it”
“Tools like PDM, Poetry and uv handle them automatically for you”
“poetry update --only dep1 silently updating dep2 in the background without telling you”
“they were a hassle due to not handling venvs and Py versions”
“they did a good job abstracting dependencies, but not venvs and Python version”
“Poetry is oriented towards your own development, not working with someone else's project.”
“certain tools (e.g. poetry) added the upper bounds automatically, increasing the amount of spurious bounds”
“Poetry largely accomplished the same thing first with most of the speedups”
“Poetry and uv avoid this issue.”
“updating a dependency via poetry would take on the order of ~5-30m”
“`poetry install` on my dayjob’s monolith took about 2 minutes”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.