I take it you're doing a lot of greenfield projects with the latest versions of Python then. I've encountered issues with Setuptools as recently as ~3 months ago:
https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/2352
I've also had to play the pip version pinning game a few times in the past.
In Python Pip 20.3 Released with new resolverpypa
setuptools
Python2017–2026
pypa / setuptools
setuptools
Official project repository for the Setuptools build system
30Distinct people
38Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
2.9KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Official project repository for the Setuptools build system
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- dmlls/python-casefy · linked in 2 of the same discussions
- frictionlessdata/frictionless-py · linked in 2 of the same discussions
- psf/requests · linked in 2 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 2:04:58 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year38 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2017-06-01 10:10:29 UTC to 2026-02-12 14:59:46 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 1 | 6 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 16 | 3 | 13 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
See the Quickstart
and the User's Guide for
instructions on how to use Setuptools.
Questions and comments should be directed to GitHub Discussions.
Bug reports and especially tested patches may be
submitted directly to the bug tracker.
Code of Conduct
Everyone interacting in the setuptools project's codebases, issue trackers,
chat rooms, and fora is expected to follow the
PSF Code of Conduct.
For Enterprise
Available as part of the Tidelift Subscription.
Setuptools and the maintainers of thousands of other packages are working with Tidelift to deliver one enterprise subscription that covers all of the open source you use.
Learn more.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
5 sourcesUh, it's complicated. I read this about three times, but I still don't know who messed up what: https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/2350#issuecomment-...
Basically it seems the Debian python does not add site-packages to its search path, but manually installing pip (via get-pip.py) installs things there. And this all worked before, because Debian shipped a patched distutils, but now setuptools vendors that.
In Python setuptools v50 breaks pip installation on Debian/UbuntuPython setuptools v50 breaks pip installation on Debian/Ubuntu
97 points · Open discussionAn interesting aspect of this that isn't touched on in the article is about the much-maligned [1] scheme where Debian's Python is patched to look for packages in `dist-packages` instead of `site-packages`. The scenario in the Docker image is I believe the exact one that this is intended to provide sanity for, since you have two Pythons in play— the Debian-packaged python and also the built-from-source Python. Things get hairy once you start using the pip from either of these pythons to start installing pypi packages, especially if those packages or their dependencies have compiled parts which may not work for the other Python. Anyone who has used a Mac with brewed Python has also likely experienced this pain— especially in the days before wheels, where you basically had to use brewed Python for scientific work unless you wanted to compile
Read the rest
big packages like numpy from source.
So the deal is that the system-supplied Python can get deps from apt packages, or from pip (into ~/.local, or as root into /usr/local), but either way will install them into a dist-packages directory. This keeps them separate from the packages which the built-from-source Python installs into site-packages.
Upstream Python has put a bunch of pieces in place to address this natively, for example with the "magic" tags that keep compiled assets separate in a directory of packages being potentially used by multiple different interpreters (see https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3147/#proposal). And obviously the ideal solution where possible is to simply use a virtualenv and be totally isolated from the system python. But there are situations where that isn't possible or desirable, such as in this docker container, and so here we are.
1: eg https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/2232
I think something people are forgetting when comparing Python's packaging system to other languages and runtimes is how old Python and its ecosystem is. For instance, Python's public release predates Linux's public release(Feb 1991 versus Aug 1991). The first release of setuptools was 2004 and it isn't like people weren't sharing Python code even before then (https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/commit/8423e1ed14ac1691c2...). That's over 5 years before npm was released (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Npm_(software)). That means npm got to learn from Python and any other project that predated it. It also means they didn't have Python's momentum to contend with (I certainly never expected Python to become _this_ popular, and that makes it very hard to change as you literally have tens of millions of people to re-educate when you change somethi
Read the rest
ng).
So while it's fine to say you wished Python's packaging approach was as good as another languages, please do so know that it is not fair to say that if one community got something to work for their needs it means Python should have been able to as well; it's not an apples-to-apples comparison considering the trees were quite possibly planted at different times and are different varietals.