Pyodide
Hacker ApprovedRanked 2 of 9 Python interpreters by recommenders
Runs CPython and popular packages like NumPy and Pandas in the browser via WebAssembly, with no server needed. The common caveat is missing packages and incompatibilities.
Runs CPython and popular packages like NumPy and Pandas in the browser via WebAssembly, with no server needed. The common caveat is missing packages and incompatibilities.
39 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 31
- criticize it
- 8
- approval share
- 79%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: 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 carries the badge
- 31 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3.9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 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
Mature and actively maintained
“Now that pyodide is mature, we can test a single snippet from Python 3.9 to 3.14 in a web page, it's quite handy.”
Comment from 2 Sep 2026 in “Pystebin: Executable Pastebin for Python in the Browser” “It's SO good at what it does, and it's nearly 8 years old now so it's pretty mature.”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Pyodide: a Python distribution based on WebAssembly” “It's impressive how mature Pyodide has become”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Pyodide: a Python distribution based on WebAssembly” - Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “PyScript is entering maintenance mod”
NumPy and Pandas work
“OpenCV being in the list of Pyodide modules was the biggest boon for my online teaching experience”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “OpenCV 5 Is Here: The Biggest Leap in Years for Computer Vision” “You can run libraries like Pandas in WebAssembly in Pyodide - in fact Pandas works already.”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Sandboxing untrusted code using WebAssembly” “Stuff like numpy seems to just work”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Pyodide: a Python distribution based on WebAssembly” No server needed, sandboxed
“WebAssembly's isolation means you get sandboxing for free without any server infrastructure.”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Pyodide: a Python distribution based on WebAssembly” “we can now have safe Python execution services from user input”
Comment from 9 Jan 2026 in “What Happened to WebAssembly” “you get a full language/runtime locally with zero server”
Comment from 9 Jan 2026 in “What Happened to WebAssembly” Good for teaching and tutorials
“OpenCV being in the list of Pyodide modules was the biggest boon for my online teaching experience”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “OpenCV 5 Is Here: The Biggest Leap in Years for Computer Vision” “Pyodide is great. I teach coding to kids, mostly creating 2d games with Python”
Comment from 14 Jun 2026 in “Pyodide 314.0: Python packages can now publish WebAssembly wheels to PyPI” “I think this is the best format for python code samples and tutorials.”
Comment from 25 Dec 2025 in “Online Book: Exploring Mathematics with Python”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Some packages removed or missing
“Bummer, looks like a lot of useful geo/data tools got removed from the Pyodide distribution recently.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Python Workers redux: fast cold starts, packages, and a uv-first workflow” “will have wide side effects if you go out of the standards packages included on the Pyodide bundle”
Comment from 11 Dec 2025 in “Python Workers redux: fast cold starts, packages, and a uv-first workflow” “Performance is somehow worse than CPython, C-extensions are missing, dev experience is atrocious.”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Pyodide: a Python distribution based on WebAssembly” Limited server-side use and sandboxing
“Pyodide restricts server-side functionality, and fetching external URLs often needs proxying by sandbox.”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Pyodide: a Python distribution based on WebAssembly” “It however is not really designed to operate as a secure sandbox environment.”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Pyodide: a Python distribution based on WebAssembly” “It's difficult to run Pyodide inside server-side Python.”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “Claude Fable 5” Convoluted setup and workflow
“a wildly convoluted way to go but does appear to work”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “The Browser Is the Sandbox” “wildly convoluted way to go but does appear to work”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “The Browser Is the Sandbox” “had a bunch of hoops I needed to jump through”
Comment from 13 Sep 2026 in “Libraries Run Rust Inside Python (With PyO3)” Slow and awkward dev experience
“Performance is somehow worse than CPython, C-extensions are missing, dev experience is atrocious.”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Pyodide: a Python distribution based on WebAssembly” “had a bunch of hoops I needed to jump through”
Comment from 13 Sep 2026 in “Libraries Run Rust Inside Python (With PyO3)”
Other Python interpreters people recommend
The four most recommended other Python interpreters, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PyPy | 57 | 34 | 63% | 9 | — | — |
| PyodideThis page | 31 | 8 | 79% | 9 | — | Approved |
| MicroPython | 25 | 10 | 71% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Monty by Pydantic | 15 | 3 | 83% | 5 | — | Approved |
| CircuitPython | 12 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 47 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“still actively maintained and developed!”
“I just got it to work using python in wasm from pyodide.”
“You can use Pyodide for that, no need to stoop to JS.”
“This has a major downside: incompatibility issues.”
“Hiring Hood a couple years ago was great money spent on that project”
“Pyodide is such a cool piece of the Python ecosystem”
“had a bunch of hoops I needed to jump through”
“Now that pyodide is mature, we can test a single snippet from Python 3.9 to 3.14 in a web page, it's quite handy.”
“it was a surprise to me that this worked flawlessly”
“not as compatible as pyiodide, especially for python3”
“Pyodide compiling actual CPython to WASM is what changed that math”
“Pyodide is great. I teach coding to kids, mostly creating 2d games with Python”
“This means we can now take any C/Rust/whatever extension for Python, compile that as a .wasm extension”
“Great news. And indeed a nice step to an even broader Python ecosystem.”
“OpenCV being in the list of Pyodide modules was the biggest boon for my online teaching experience”
“It's difficult to run Pyodide inside server-side Python.”
“Python (Pyodide) and SQL (DuckDB) in WASM”
“Stuff like numpy seems to just work”
“It's impressive how mature Pyodide has become”
“WebAssembly's isolation means you get sandboxing for free without any server infrastructure.”
“Performance is somehow worse than CPython, C-extensions are missing, dev experience is atrocious.”
“It however is not really designed to operate as a secure sandbox environment.”
“Seems like it would solve some of the extra friction that makes it hard to get started.”
“I've used it to put together a browser app to program walkie-talkies”
“It's SO good at what it does, and it's nearly 8 years old now so it's pretty mature.”
“It works surprisingly well in terms of writing python for native execution”
“Pyodide restricts server-side functionality, and fetching external URLs often needs proxying by sandbox.”
“it works great in conjunction with observable and d3js for pretty interactives!”
“here is Python compiled to WASM”
“You can run libraries like Pandas in WebAssembly in Pyodide - in fact Pandas works already.”
“Incredible what you can do with Pyodide + Marimo these days.”
“a wildly convoluted way to go but does appear to work”
“wildly convoluted way to go but does appear to work”
“you get a full language/runtime locally with zero server”
“we can now have safe Python execution services from user input”
“I think this is the best format for python code samples and tutorials.”
“Pyodide itself seems fully married to JS, as it compiles to Emscripten and not WASI.”
“Pyodide is a great enabler for this kind of thing”
“will have wide side effects if you go out of the standards packages included on the Pyodide bundle”
“Bummer, looks like a lot of useful geo/data tools got removed from the Pyodide distribution recently.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.