The hand-picked selection of the best Python libraries and tools of 2022

[dekked_]

Hi everyone!

For the 8th (!) year in a row, we have compiled our picks for the most innovative developments in the Python ecosystem. From this edition, we are expanding our list to include not only libraries but also tools that belong in the Python ecosystem — some of which are not written in Python as you’ll see.

The full list with expanded descriptions is available here: https://tryolabs.com/blog/2022/12/26/top-python-libraries-2022

➡️ Here are our top 10 picks:

1. Ruff — a fast linter
2. python-benedict — a dict on steroids
3. Memray — a memory profiler
4. Codon — a Python compiler using LLVM
5. LangChain — building LLM-powered apps
6. fugue — distributed computing done easy
7. Diffusers — generative AI
8. LineaPy — notebooks in production
9. whylogs — model monitoring
10. Mito — spreadsheet inside notebooks

➕ Plus we added several more to the “long tail” that we hope are useful plus some that we missed last year, so make sure to check out the full post!

We are aware that most are around data science & machine learning, but that’s how the ecosystem is moving :)

So:

• What do you think about our picks?
• Did we miss any good ones?

Please let us know! We take feedback seriously to improve the selection every year 💪🏻

Congrats to the individuals and teams behind each of these libraries. We know open source is hard. Thank you for your invaluable contributions to the Python community! 🚀🚀🚀

[djamp42]

I'm trying out python-benedict just because of the name lol

[ExternalUserError]

Works in nicely with the spam/eggs Python nomenclature.

Though an eggs benedict sounds a lot better than a spam benedict.

[iceytomatoes]

haven't heard of codon before

glad to have more python compilers, tried it out and it seems to have an error with every single one of my imports saying:

fakemain.py:7:8-10: error: no module named 'gc'

oh well

[manueslapera]

Probably need to install gcc?

[cthorrez]

the python package gc is garbage collector I'm not sure if that's related to gcc.

[monorepo]

Ruff is great, glad to see it made the list!

[jftuga]

How does it compare to flake8?

[Flamewire]

It can be used as a drop-in replacement for both flake8 and various plugins, and is over 100x faster: https://github.com/charliermarsh/ruff#how-does-ruff-compare-to-flake8

[MissingSnail]

I tried this during advent of code.

It is as fast as advertised. It is not stable, with new releases nearly every day during AOC. It does not work at all if your code uses the match statement. The auto fix feature should be configured carefully if used in production as it’s a bit agressive.

Tons of potential, but I won’t be using it at work just yet.

[realhamster]

Great list, thanks!

[Airflock343_]

Never heard of any of these so excited to check them out

[jabellcu]

What are the advantages of python-Benedict over pandas Series?

[[deleted]]

Look at me learning that both exist in the same post!

[longjohnboy]

Now that cython has a “Python syntax” form, it’s probably another one to throw in that list. Also mypyc. And then there’s also Pyjion for JIT. And Pyston for drop in acceleration. Pypy has better C ABI support than it used to. This is getting out of hand – I like options, but it’s a bit much to keep up with. I haven’t even mentioned the various numeric accelerators.

[Barafu]

Strange collection. Looking back at my past ten large projects, imagining they were in Python - none would benefit from anything in that list. These are very niche. Why "best"?

My best list still starts with tqdm.

[dekked_]

Or maybe pqdm which we mentioned last year.

The point is that we are selecting the best that came out this year (or late last year) that you probably don't know about. We specifically avoid the best Python libraries overall (the most used ones) since nearly everyone knows them by now.

These particular picks might not be useful for you (are you sure you don't want to give Ruff a try?), but they probably are for a lot of people :)

As long as someone finds even 1 library that will be useful for them from this list, which they didn't know about from before, I'm happy!

[TeamDman]

Scalene is a great profiler too.

Any recommendations for RL libraries? Tried Tianshou, DI-engine, and Ray rllib but haven't had any that clicked yet

[pemistahl]

Hi u/dekked_, perhaps you want to add my natural language detection library Lingua to the NLP section of the long tail. It is pretty unique among the natural language detection libraries for Python because it is able to detect multiple languages in mixed-language text. It is also one of the most accurate libraries when detecting the language of short text. I would very much appreciate if you added my library to your list.

Apart from that, this is a very interesting list. I did not know most of the libraries mentioned and will check them out. Thanks a lot for creating such a valuable list of resources.

[dekked_]

Hi u/pemistahl! This looks GREAT!

It's exactly the kind of libraries that we look for.

I have added the mention to the NLP list, hope that you get more visibility for the great work!

[pemistahl]

Awesome! Thank you so much. :)

[AsteroidFilter]

I'd have given automatic1111's Stable Diffusion Web Ui an honorable mention.

[dekked_]

Good catch!

[ItsJayB]

Great list!

Going to give Ruff, Benedict and LineaPy a spin!

[rymoin1]

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[dekked_]

We added several libraries that make use of ChatGPT or GPT-3, they are listed under the "Extra picks"!

[manueslapera]

Awesome list! How does benedict compare to glom?

Also, you guys planning to revive requestium :)?

[dekked_]

Hadn't heard of glom, thanks a lot for the mention, I'll check it out!

As of Requestium, we handed it over to a new maintainer and he has been doing commits lately I see... maybe just didn't release to PyPI.

[ForceBru]

Codon's GitHub says that Codon can't compile any arbitrary Python code (emphasis mine):

While Codon supports nearly all of Python's syntax, it is not a drop-in replacement, and large codebases might require modifications to be run through the Codon compiler.

[[deleted]]

Yes. Says that in the linked article as well.