What Is Conda? Python Environment and Package Management

Conda is a command-line package and environment manager that creates, isolates, and switches between Python setups with different package and interpreter versions. Managing different projects and their requirements is challenging when Python coding involves many varying package versions and intricate setups. Conda solves this by letting you work with isolated environments from the command line. Do not confuse Conda with Anaconda, which is a scientific-computing distribution that bundles a set of packages including NumPy, SciPy, Jupyter notebooks, and Conda itself.

With the Conda package manager, you can create, list, remove, and update environments with different versions of Python and packages installed. This introductory post describes the process of creating and using Conda environments — a practical starting point if you have not used Conda yet. For complete reference material, read the [official Conda documentation][1]. Below is a concise review of the most useful Conda commands to start with.

Installing Conda on macOS, Windows, and Linux

Conda installs on Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms by following the [official installation instructions][2]. This post uses conda 4.11.0 on macOS. Beware that some commands differ if you use Conda versions below 4.6.

conda --version

Conda was installed with the Miniforge3-MacOSX-arm64 distribution downloaded from Miniforge Releases and run via the bash script:

/bin/bash Miniforge3-MacOSX-arm64.sh

Managing Conda Environments from the Command Line

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Conda Environment Management: Summary

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References

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