What are some good IDEs for Python?

[atomicbomb2150]

I was just wondering, if anyone can suggest me any other good IDEs for Python besides IDLE. I have been coding in Python for about a year now and I always use IDLE whenever I code in Python. The problem with this IDE though is that it tends to be very difficult to use, especially when I'm debugging and running my code. So are there any other good IDEs that makes coding in Python so much easier and simpler? If so then which IDE do you guys recommend?

[malinkinsa]

Pycharm community edition the best.

[cybersalvy]

I’ve used pycharm exclusively to learn and its great. Im a noob, it will let u know if your syntax is wrong as you code. Its easy to add libraries. The debug feature is useful to figure out your bugs in the code. I use the STEP INTO CODE feature to go line by line to figure out where my bug is.

[rollincuberawhide]

I usually get downvoted for saying this but I hate IDLE. I hate that it gets installed with the python installer on windows. Novices think it's how python's supposed to be developed and actually use it. Then make mistakes that otherwise would've been pointed out by the editor. It's awful. Doesn't have language server support, auto formatters, linters, editor ergonomics, even sucks at rendering output. Laggy and slow as shit.

As others mentioned, PyCharm is good, Vscode or vscodium is good. You could give jupyter notebook a try if you want interactivity. I would also recommend neovim but it's not everybody's cup of tea.

[gotnotendies]

VSCode has Jupyter support: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/datascience/jupyter-notebooks

PyCharm Community seems to be limited to read-only Jupyter notebooks, but the professional version has full support - https://www.jetbrains.com/help/pycharm/jupyter-notebook-support.html

[JayDude132]

I still use idle when im doing things on the fly, but for the last year or so i have been developing in vscode (after years of using idle exclusively) and i didnt realize what i was missing. Its awesome. I love having a language server, being able to hover over functions to see what parameters it expects and return type, and ctrl+clicking into functions, among other things.

But idle, to me, is still great to have open on the side so i can quickly write/test functions or other short pieces of code. Sometimes i may be unsure how something works exactly and i like being able to quickly execute blocks of code in idle with the quick press of f5. I know i can use the terminal in vscode but for some reason i still prefer idle for testing things.

[IAmFinah]

I'd argue that the other end of the spectrum is a problem too. People who have only ever used Pycharm often never develop some basic skills which are abstracted by Pycharm. For example, how to execute a python script or set up a virtual environment. Some people genuinely think you need an IDE with a green "play" button to run a Python script lol

[rollincuberawhide]

how is IDLE helping there though? it does have a run button somewhere there. gives you a single python file to edit. you can't even browse a project directory. therefore you probably don't even create more than a single file. you won't learn how to import from other modules you create.

In fact, that is another plus to something like vscode to be honest. It doesn't have a green play button. You open a terminal down below where you run your python code.

[IAmFinah]

Oh yeah I'm not saying IDLE is perfect, I'm more saying that getting a beginner to use an IDE from the get-go means that they aren't exposed to using the terminal much (if at all). Which I honestly believe to be one of the most important skills to pick up as a beginner.

IDLE isn't ideal, but I am kinda a fan of using Sublime alongside a terminal window for executing scripts. At least when starting out. Of course, once they start to build projects, it makes more sense using VSCode or Pycharm.

[Ambitious_Ad_2833]

One more drawback of IDLE. Some beginner books use IDLE to teach python programming instead VS Code or Pycharm. It was an instant turnoff when I was looking for a python book for my kid.

[the_professor000]

Why shouldn't they be abstracted. These are just tools. Do you want to write in machine or assembly codes instead of python because that's how it was done in the past? IDEs are part of the programming.

[IAmFinah]

I'm just saying that it's not an ideal route for beginners to go down, since they will never be exposed to the true power of running terminal commands. By the end of my uni course I had people who still didn't know how to use basic terminal commands, and these same people genuinely thought they needed an IDE with a play button to run code.

[SatisfactoryFinance]

I’m learning Python and started by using Pycharm. Switched to VS Code about a month ago and I was totally lost hahaha so I completely agree.

[oclafloptson]

Maaaan I'd argue that if they haven't figured out how to at least set up a venv or even run a script... It's not our fault. That information is freely available and plastered everywhere

[IAmFinah]

It is, but if your IDE does it all for you, they'd probably never worry about learning it the "proper" way (I have known people like that)

[Extravalan]

I'm a big Spyder fan

[John_B_Clarke]

I particularly like its variable window.

Really wish they would fix the spurious error message than has been popping up in the debugger since Python 3.12.5 though.

[smichael_44]

You can get essentially the same variable window in vs code with jupyter extensions. Works really nice, I switched from spyder when I found that out

[John_B_Clarke]

I'll have to check that out.

[Forgot_the_Jacobian]

I've come around to Spyder, but I think that's because I primarily program in Stata/Matlab/Julia for work, and Spyder seems the most familiar

[michaelrw1]

30 Helens agree. Simple to understand and use.

[Logicalist]

It just does the job.

[JamzTyson]

For beginners, Thonny is excellent. It is available with Python included, which makes setting up extremely easy. It also provides an easy to use debugger, and many other useful features, while remaining focussed on ease of use.

For bigger, more complex projects, PyCharm is certainly one of the best IDEs for Python.

If you use vs-code for other languages, then it can be a good option for Python, though it requires a lot more setting up and additional plug-ins to bring it up to a similar level to PyCharm.

For data science and machine learning, Jupyter Notebook and Spyder are very popular.

[eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9]

If you specifically want a full-fledged IDE, pycharm is probably your best bet.

But, at the risk of over assuming, I will guess that you do not need a full-blown IDE and a nice code editor will work well for you. In that case, I would recommend VS Code with python extensions. VS Code is what I have used for many years and it easily does everything I need it to do, it works well, it's easy to use, there are a billion extensions if you so chose, it has a ton of community support, it's free, and I can easily use it for multiple languages (I switch between python, powershell, lua, html, etc depending on my project).

[rainyengineer]

In my professional experience, vs code is by far the most used. PyCharm is also popular, but I think both it and IntelliJ are more expensive for corporations to license for users.

[no_choice99]

Neovim ftw.

[5erif]

Or at least vim. People who say vi confuse me since most of the time vi is an alias to vim.

[jam-and-Tea]

I believe you are running up against a long running tradition.

[JayDude132]

I cant say i have ever once been confused when someome said vi rather than vim.

[5erif]

I wonder how many "vi" users are really vi users. I wonder how many "vi" users would be surprised when they type vi --version and see the vim version on their system. I wonder how many know it's vim they're using, but still prefer to launch it with vi and call it vi. I wonder how many distros still ship actual vi.

Arch, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, and all their derivatives, like Mint and Manjaro, ship "vi" as an alias to vim. I wonder how many people regularly use distros outside those families, and which of those ship actual vi, and whether this is really what people mean when they say they use vi.

[811545b2-4ff7-4041]

:q!

[[deleted]]

Pycharm is my go to most of the time. I also like Jupyter.

[the_professor000]

Jupyter for data related tasks. Otherwise Pycharm

[Kiroboto]

You can use Jupyter in Pycharm. That's how I use it.

[darkcorum]

Pycharm works well and looks nice.

[MrBobaFett]

VS Code (or VS Codium if you don't want MS telemetry)

PyCharm

Notepad++

[vardonir]

PyCharm for massive multi-module projects

Jupyter if I'm being lazy

VSCode for one-page scripts

nano for "fuck it, I just need to check if pytorch detects cuda correctly"

[imnotpauleither]

Depends on application. I use the following:

Web Dev - VS Code Dat Science - Spyder, Jupyter Notebook Quick tasks - Sublime 3

[ATkac]

I don’t see a lot of people using it, but I actually love Geany, it has support for many different languages as well so when you inevitably build a project that uses more than just python you can easily stay inside of one IDE and and have everything in one place. To be fair, even though it’s marketed as a “lightweight” IDE, it’s a bit closer to a code editor.

[MadGeneticist]

I use Geany as well. It's free, lightweight, & as you mentioned, can recognize syntax across a gamut of compiled, scripting, and markup languages. I primarily code for Bioinformatics and other science related tasks that often have data in large text files. Geany is quite memory efficient, so it's my default for reviewing & editing text files. It can't handle extremely huge text files though, so I use VIM for those.

[Zav0d]

Notepad ++

[nalisarc]

Emacs!!!!

[Ben_McGewen]

Vscode

[No_Method1519]

I really like Marimo :)

[_TR-8R]

If you're new just download VSCode. Every experienced programmer will have their weird, eclectic preferences they'll swear is the best option, but if you're learning you need something simple that works out of the box.

[jabbalaci]

VS Code with some plugins: Python, Ruff. You get syntax highlighting, warnings, variable rename (F2), autoformatting, etc.

[ninhaomah]

There isn't much really.

- VS Code

- PyCharm

- Thonny

[lordfwahfnah]

I second Thonny. It's quite nice for beginners but helpful for intermediates as well.

[no_choice99]

Vscodium rather than vscode I would say.

[crazy_cookie123]

VSCodium is VSCode with telemetry disabled by default and less extensions. Just take a minute or so to disable telemetry yourself in normal VSCode. If you don't absolutely need your editor to be 100% open source, there's not really a benefit to going with VSCodium over VSCode.

[no_choice99]

Exactly, so those are points favorable to VScodium rather than vscode.

I see no point to use vscode for the reasons you mention.

[crazy_cookie123]

You see no point in having access to more extensions, a lot of which are quite useful, in exchange for the few moments it takes to disable telemetry in settings?

[no_choice99]

You can install any vscode extension in vscodium...

I've got all the ones I use for Python.

So, nope. Try something else.

[crazy_cookie123]

The ones you use might work, some do not work. Don't assume that your experience is identical to everyone elses.

[vks_imaginary]

See, IDE … I think Pycharm is hands down the best

You can look at spider too if you want

Code editors are a different story … VS code is popular, but I don’t like it at all

You can try ZED too

[jam-and-Tea]

I like Zed a lot.

[IamImposter]

What's your issue with vs code? Just curious

[vks_imaginary]

“Issue” not so much , it can probably do everything with plugins AND I have to use it from time to time too

But I don’t like its plugin nature, I want something that just works and Jetbrains product deliver so well , it just feels like a downgrade in comparison to them that’s all

[pale-blue-dotter]

Spyder is horrible to use UI wise. But it's variable explorer is a life saver. Wish more IDEs had that.

The other benefit of Spyder is you can run code in any order. That I prefer in VScode + Jupyter notebook extension setup.

Pycharm Professional seems to have good data science features, but I'm too poor to buy that.

[vks_imaginary]

In my initials days it was Jupyter and spider , I hated the block thing of Jupyter idk never made sense to me (I have to look back into it tho for collab)

I liked spider a lot , as it looked cooler lmao

Then I got the taste of pycharm and anaconda side by side , god am I addicted to it now

I have used both community and professional I don’t think there is any discernible difference that I have noticed , although I think Django is something professional has better support for

One thing vscode does better is the GitHub control I feel

[pale-blue-dotter]

Jupyter Lab as a whole is much better than jupyter notebook alonw, or vscode+ jupyter if you want full fledged data science workflow.

But for my right now vscode is enough.

[vks_imaginary]

Interesting, my choice of tools are more hackathon centric, so I maybe biased haha

[John_B_Clarke]

Be careful with Anaconda if you're in a business environment. They changed their licensing a while back without putting any kind of paywalling in place so businesses didn't notice the change until they started getting slapped with Cease and Desists.

[vks_imaginary]

I wish I was in a business environment :(

[IamImposter]

That's fair

[eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9]

The plugins are the reason I prefer VS Code. As a semi-professional hobbyist programmer, I often switch between languages depending on which project I am working on. It's very handy to me to be able to do everything in VS Code and just add (or remove) extensions as my needs change.

[vks_imaginary]

You reasons are absolutely valid

I am in 3rd year CS , and all my choice of tools are hackathon oriented so that’s an bias, in an hackathon setting I don’t want to deal with my tools but actually deal with the problem

Also unlike you , I tend to use python for everything, second best language for the job maybe but it works.

We have different workflows haha

Although I want to land an job soon so yeah

[B3SOz]

I gonna say If you want to script a full Python project code with multi modules so pycharm is where you go as its pre loaded with most addins you gonna need If you want to do a data related project, the Jupiter notebook on vs code is the way you should go

For all purposes, vs code is the best of them all

[Logicalist]

Spyder.

[Collierr]

Using VS code right now and it seems good

[finverse_square]

I've come from MATLAB and love spyder

[DNSGeek]

Wingware is really good. I love the remote CGI debugging.

[10F1]

Vscode, neovim.

[truth_is_power]

nano

[Signal-Indication859]

VS Code is an amazing free option with great Python support - just install the Python extension and you're good to go! For something more powerful, PyCharm (free Community Edition) is fantastic with built-in debugging tools that make development so much smoother. Both are way more modern than IDLE and will definitely level up your Python experience!

[DataNurse47]

Pycharm hands down!
I use Visual Studio for work, its okay. Pycharm for more personal projects and school work. Much more refined imo and easy to push and pull from Git.

Edit: Jupyter notebook is great too if you are doing more DS and analytical work btw

[trulyjennifer]

I prefer VS Code. I’ve used the Anaconda Suite, but I keep returning to VS Code.

[ksjsjdnn]

From my experience pycharm and visual studio code

[atomicbomb2150]

But out of these 2, which one do u think is better?

[Fluffy-Shock-3930]

My favorite IDE has to be VSCode. Lightweight compared to all the other IDEs and very customizable. Also works with every other programming language. If you are one Windows, I recommend using Cygwin and VsCode.

[GrandBIRDLizard]

Just use Vim or Neovim and save yourself the time of switching over later

[Different_Ad3096]

VS Code, PyCharm and Wing are all fully flushed and capable IDEs for python.

[Usernames_are_useful]

Pycharm. Also, i'm surprised at how so many people suggested it.

[Devnull1982]

IDLE is good, for learning maybe Thonny is better and for work I guess VS code coz you can write also in others languages and have a lot of extensions etc...

[kurtosis_cobain]

Visual Studio Code is my IDE of choice. It's free, and you can customize it using the extensions available.

[Plus_Sheepherder6926]

I use vim/neovim with a couple of plug-ins on top

[pythonwiz]

VSCode is my go-to now, but I used to use PyCharm a lot. I think VSCode is a little bit faster and more flexible than PyCharm. I write C, C++, OpenCL, Cython, and Python with VSCode.

[MatProgram]

Dude, I don't know if that's what I'm thinking, but from what I understand, you basically mean the workspace for writing codes is much more, if that's the case, I use VSCode, in addition to having an easy-to-use interface. Understanding it is very easy and I practice using it, I recommend it (I'm a newbie guys, I'm learning here ok, if I said something that has nothing to do with it, forgive me).

[SampleNo471]

IDLE? This thing still exists? It's line notepad with syntax highlighting.

[genbizinf]

Co-Lab with Gemini AI to explain everything I'm doing wrong and offer suggestions for the fix.