pip vs easy_install

pip vs easy_install

Page Status:	Complete
Last Reviewed:	2015-09-08

easy_install was released in 2004, as part of setuptools. It wasnotable at the time for installing packages fromPyPI using requirement specifiers, andautomatically installing dependencies.

pip came later in 2008, as alternative to easy_install, although stilllargely built on top of setuptools components. It was notable at thetime for not installing packages as Eggs or from Eggs (butrather simply as ‘flat’ packages from sdists), and introducing the idea of Requirements Files, which gave users the power to easily replicateenvironments.

Here’s a breakdown of the important differences between pip and easy_install now:

	pip	easy_install
Installs from Wheels	Yes	No
Uninstall Packages	Yes (pip uninstall)	No
Dependency Overrides	Yes (Requirements Files)	No
List Installed Packages	Yes (pip list and pipfreeze)	No
PEP 438Support	Yes	No
Installation format	‘Flat’ packages with egg-infometadata.	Encapsulated Egg format
sys.path modification	No	Yes
Installs from Eggs	No	Yes
pylauncher support	No	Yes [1]
Multi-version Installs	No	Yes
Exclude scripts during install	No	Yes

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[1]	https://setuptools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/easy_install.html#natural-script-launcher 来自：https://packaging.python.org/pip_easy_install/