SymPy

What hackers pick instead

• Wolfram MathematicaRecommended for its consistent, well-designed language, huge built-in library and strong symbolic math in an interactive notebook, but critics cite high cost, proprietary lock-in and poor performance at scale.103recommend
• SymbolicaRecommended as a fast, programmable symbolic math library usable from Rust or Python without learning a bundled language. Critics say its license restricts use.7recommend

Every quote

The 19 most detailed of 21 comments. Each links to the original.

1. sympy handles the common cases well but there's still a gap on things like definite integrals

   Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “Making Wolfram Tech Available as a Foundation Tool for LLM Systems”

2. sympy and similar packages can handle the vast majority of simple cases

   Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Making Wolfram Tech Available as a Foundation Tool for LLM Systems”

3. Those libraries are for the most part pretty well designed

   Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Python's pre-declared constants are kinda weird”

4. sympy is good enough for typical uses

   Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Making Wolfram Tech Available as a Foundation Tool for LLM Systems”

5. don't completely dismiss SymPy

   Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Python 3.14 garbage collection rigamarole”

6. Last I heard Sympy was one of the worst performers, even among other open source CASs.

   Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Wolfram Language and Mathematica Version 15, AI Assistant, Symbolic Music, More”

7. It was also way way faster than SymPy was for anything interesting.

   Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Show HN: Woxi - Open-source Mathematica / Wolfram Language reimplementation”

8. Sympy was similarly far behind in differential equations

   Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Wolfram Language and Mathematica Version 15, AI Assistant, Symbolic Music, More”

9. Python's combination of readable syntax and powerful libraries (NumPy, SymPy, Matplotlib)

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Online Book: Exploring Mathematics with Python”

10. SymPy Computer Algebra System (CAS): An authoritative backend symbolic math engine

    Mixed · Oct 2026 · in “SHOW HN: Pythos – A free, STEM tutor with verification and physics sims”

11. I do a lot of what I need symbolically in SymPy for dynamics analysis

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Python 3.14 garbage collection rigamarole”

12. SymPy still has a few classic math things that Symbolics doesn't

    Mixed · Oct 2026 · in “Calculus with Julia”

13. very occasionally SymPy just to avoid using Maxima

    Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “France's homegrown open source online office suite”

14. it's a niche use that add some maintenance cost

    Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “Ask HN: What are you working on (March 2026)”

15. It called SymPy tools to verify it

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Claude Fable produced a counterexample to the Jacobian Conjecture”

16. Of these only Sage, Maxima and Woxi were capable of giving the expected answers.

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Show HN: Woxi - Open-source Mathematica / Wolfram Language reimplementation”

17. S.Rational(1) + S.Rational(1,3) type of things from sympy are hard to digest.

    Criticizes · Oct 2026 · in “Calculus with Julia”

18. the hardest part to get right with things like simpy and even mathematica

    Criticizes · Feb 2026 · in “Show HN: SymDerive – A functional, stateless symbolic math library”

19. Development is pretty much dead other than some bug fixes.

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Symbolica 2.0: Programmable Symbols for Python and Rust”