# virtualenv

10 Hacker News commenters recommended virtualenv and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Gives each Python project its own separate package environment, and many report few problems with it. Critics call it a hack and say it isn't relocatable out of the box.

## Why people recommend it

- Few problems in practice (2 comments): "virtualenv is Often Just Fine in practice, at least if used in sensible ways" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48317692)) "I have had few problems with virtualenv in any case." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45992770))
- Known-good, reproducible configurations (2 comments): "It's a good way to have an LKGC (Last Known Good Configuration)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47345302)) "Virtualenvs and requirements.txt were an further improvement" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48159355))
- Go-to tool for isolating projects (2 comments): "you could still just generate a virtual venv and then use pip to install packages in the local venv" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49575823)) "you'd tell them about virtualenv or docker" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46259816))

## What people warn about

- Hacky approach, hardlinks Python installs (2 comments): "it hardlinks the python install into the local dir in order to pretend everything is a system-wide global install" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48461220)) "Virtualenv is still the same grotesque hack, where rather than doing what other languages like Perl and Ruby do" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50249938))
- Considered a poor design (2 comments): "Virtualenv is still the same grotesque hack, where rather than doing what other languages like Perl and Ruby do" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50249938)) "The fact that virtualenv exists at all should be viewed by the python community as a source of profound shame." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45939826))
- Clunky and hard to learn (2 comments): "Things got bearable with virtualenv/virtualenv wrappers, but it was never what I would call great." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47448051)) "I have suffered through learning about anaconda, virtualenv, pip, and more." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47449858))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [uv](https://hackerapproved.com/p/uv.md): 533 recommend
- [pip](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pip.md): 46 recommend
- [Poetry](https://hackerapproved.com/p/poetry.md): 20 recommend
- [Python venv](https://hackerapproved.com/p/venv.md): 17 recommend
- [pipx](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pipx.md): 10 recommend

## Cite as

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