SciPy
Hacker ApprovedRanked 4 of 14 Python libraries by recommenders
Recommended as a core numerical and scientific library in Python, often alongside NumPy and pandas, for heavy computation and turning equations into code.
Recommended as a core numerical and scientific library in Python, often alongside NumPy and pandas, for heavy computation and turning equations into code.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 12
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 86%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 12 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 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
Core of the Python science stack
“Third party libraries like SciPy scikit-learn, pandas, tensorflow and pytorch have been critical to python's success”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “"Warn about PyPy being unmaintained"” “Pandas and Matplotlib and SciPy all used via an ipython notebook were almost a replacement”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Wolfram Compute Services” “NumPy, SciPy, and pandas gave them a decent glue layer over C and Fortran”
Comment from 28 Mar 2026 in “Telnyx v4.87.1 and v4.87.2 are compromised by TeamPCP” - Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “Write less code, be more responsible”
- Comment from 22 May 2026 in “Uv is fantastic, but its package management UX is a mess”
- Comment from 20 Aug 2026 in “Malicious Rust Crate Arrayref Runs a Build-Time Payload”
- Comment from 14 Mar 2026 in “Python: The Optimization Ladder”
- Comment from 12 May 2026 in “If AI Writes Your Code, Why Use Python?”
- Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Type Server Protocol”
Works well with NumPy
“NumPy, SciPy, and pandas gave them a decent glue layer over C and Fortran”
Comment from 28 Mar 2026 in “Telnyx v4.87.1 and v4.87.2 are compromised by TeamPCP” “I already consider SciPy and NumPy to be best practice in this area”
Comment from 22 May 2026 in “Uv is fantastic, but its package management UX is a mess” “Write it in Python with numpy/scipy doing the heavy lifting”
Comment from 14 Mar 2026 in “Python: The Optimization Ladder” - Comment from 12 May 2026 in “If AI Writes Your Code, Why Use Python?”
- Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Type Server Protocol”
Other Python libraries people recommend
The four most recommended other Python libraries, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Polars | 152 | 50 | 75% | 12 | 1 yr3 owners | Approved |
| pandas | 93 | 98 | 49% | 11 | 10 yrs7 owners | — |
| NumPy | 86 | 32 | 73% | 12 | — | Approved |
| SciPyThis page | 12 | 2 | 86% | 7 | — | Approved |
| sh Python library | 10 | 2 | 83% | 6 | — | Approved |
What people said
13 of the 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“NumPy and SciPy really set the stage.”
“it always feels like I'm very carefully converting the equations I've scribbled down on paper into code”
“Numpy, Pandas, Scipy, Pytorch etc are all third party projects.”
“I already consider SciPy and NumPy to be best practice in this area”
“the open source ecosystem is great”
“The scipy/numpy dataframes model is really neat though”
“immersing in PyTorch and Scipy stack had a huge return on investment”
“NumPy, SciPy, and pandas gave them a decent glue layer over C and Fortran”
“so I could use scipy, which could load and process all the models implemented in Matlab”
“Write it in Python with numpy/scipy doing the heavy lifting”
“Third party libraries like SciPy scikit-learn, pandas, tensorflow and pytorch have been critical to python's success”
“Pandas and Matplotlib and SciPy all used via an ipython notebook were almost a replacement”
“These only help if you can move the hot loop into some compiled code in those libraries.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.