ESesafak·Aug 6, 2025
If you see a wart report it: https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/issues/
In Software Rotpypa
virtualenv
Python2012–2025
pypa / virtualenv
virtualenv
Virtual Python Environment builder
10Distinct people
10Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
5.1KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Virtual Python Environment builder
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
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Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 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 year10 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2012-06-07 10:56:11 UTC to 2025-08-06 16:30:46 UTC.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 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 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
10 sources`virtualenv` still exists and is still actively developed. It's true that Python 3 ships with `venv` but I think `virtualenv` offers some additional features.
https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv
In How Python virtual environments workLast I checked, pyenv was dependent on absolute paths that can't change. This makes it very difficult to use with things like CI/CD pipelines that copy repos into temporary directories. There used to be a "--relocatable" switch, but it's gone now.
https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/issues/1549
Edit: Ah, yep, somehow read this as virtualenv.
In Managing Python Versions with PyenvI've been using Fish for years and spend my entire day working with Python. Python's virtualenv has an `activate.fish` command, I've never had any problems with it. Additionally, we have a ton of internal tooling built in a fabfile, so I've written a couple of snippets of fish that automatically activate that .venv (Poetry managed) whenever I cd into a directory that has one, and also expands a bunch of env vars into the shell session. I've also got this feature request in on the virtualenv repo in the hope that one day we can have activate.fish emit an event - https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/issues/1456
In Fish 3.4.0I went through the same progression, thinking pipenv was the official solution before deciding it wasn’t. Then, just now, I realized that pipenv [1] is currently owned by the Python Packaging Authority (PyPA) who also owns pip [2] and virtualenv [3]. I don’t know the right answer but this illustrates the confusion of not coalescing around an official solution.
[1]: https://github.com/pypa/pipenv
[2]: https://github.com/pypa/pip
[3]: https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv
In How to make a Python package in 2021Module 'virtualenv.activation.python' has no attribute 'PestythonActivator'
1 points · Open discussion> (no file system would need a path longer than 260 characters, right? :o) )
This is poking fun at Windows' PATH_MAX, but it's very easy to hit BINPRM_BUF_SIZE's 128 character path limit for #! lines; maybe not so much for humans, but with CI systems installing things in weird deep directories (e.g. virtualenvs ... see https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/issues/596).
So the old adage about glass houses and stones is still good advice ;)
In One million lines of code ought to be enough for anybodyI could be wrong, but virtualenv, like pip, is not part of the core language. Its developed exclusively by pypa.
https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv
In PEP 582 – Python local packages directoryThis is going to take some getting used-to. The visuals (specifically the syntax highlighting and code completion) are very reminiscent of bpython.
On the other hand, I'm really happy to say farewell to readline. I've been stuck with readline v6.2.4.1 for ages just so I can have proper linewrap [0]. Of course this breaks virtualenv creation so you end up having to override the system readline [1]. Needless to say, this is well overdue.
[0]: https://github.com/ipython/ipython/issues/3329/
[1]: https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/issues/4#issuecomment-966...
In Release of IPython 5.0I agree with your point. But virtualenv has support for fish:
. your_env/bin/activate.fish
https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/blob/develop/virtualenv_e...
In Fish: Finally, a command line shell for the 90s