VOOZH about

URL: https://dev.to/0012303/uv-has-a-free-api-the-python-package-manager-thats-100x-faster-than-pip-4fpe

⇱ uv Has a Free API — The Python Package Manager That's 100x Faster Than pip - DEV Community

TL;DR

uv by Astral (makers of Ruff) is a Python package manager written in Rust that replaces pip, pip-tools, pipx, poetry, pyenv, and virtualenv. It's 10-100x faster and works as a drop-in replacement.

What Is uv?

uv is the all-in-one Python toolchain:

  • 100x faster than pip — Rust-powered resolution and installation
  • Replaces everything — pip, pip-tools, poetry, pyenv, virtualenv, pipx
  • Python version management — install and manage Python versions
  • Lockfile — reproducible installs with uv.lock
  • Scripts — run single-file Python scripts with dependencies
  • Free — MIT/Apache 2.0

Quick Start 

# Install uv
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Create a new project
uv init my-project
cd my-project

# Add dependencies
uv add fastapi uvicorn sqlalchemy

# Run your app
uv run python main.py

# Or run directly
uv run fastapi dev

Replace pip 

# Instead of: pip install requests
uv pip install requests

# Instead of: pip install -r requirements.txt
uv pip install -r requirements.txt

# Instead of: pip freeze > requirements.txt
uv pip freeze > requirements.txt

# 10-100x faster, same interface!

Python Version Management (Replace pyenv) 

# Install Python versions
uv python install 3.12
uv python install 3.11 3.10

# List installed versions
uv python list

# Pin version for project
uv python pin 3.12

# Use specific version
uv run --python 3.11 python script.py

Project Management (Replace Poetry) 

# Initialize with pyproject.toml
uv init my-api

# Add dependencies
uv add fastapi
uv add sqlalchemy>=2.0
uv add --dev pytest ruff mypy

# Remove dependencies
uv remove sqlalchemy

# Sync environment from lockfile
uv sync

# Update all dependencies
uv lock --upgrade

Inline Script Dependencies 

# /// script
# dependencies = [
# "requests>=2.31",
# "rich>=13.0",
# ]
# ///

import requests
from rich import print

response = requests.get("https://api.github.com/repos/astral-sh/uv")
data = response.json()
print(f"uv has {data['stargazers_count']} stars!")

# Run it — uv auto-installs dependencies!
uv run script.py

Replace pipx (Install CLI Tools) 

# Instead of: pipx install ruff
uv tool install ruff

# Run without installing
uv tool run black --check .
uvx black --check . # shorthand

# Run specific version
uvx ruff@0.8.0 check .

Speed Comparison

Operation uv pip poetry
Install Django 0.5s 15s 25s
Resolve 500 deps 2s 45s 120s
Create virtualenv 0.01s 2s 3s
Cold install (no cache) 3s 30s 60s

pyproject.toml 

[project]
name = "my-api"
version = "0.1.0"
requires-python = ">=3.11"dependencies = [
 "fastapi>=0.115", "uvicorn>=0.32", "sqlalchemy>=2.0",]

[tool.uv]
dev-dependencies = [
 "pytest>=8.0", "ruff>=0.8", "mypy>=1.13",]

Resources

Managing Python scraping projects? My Apify tools provide production web scrapers — manage them with uv for lightning-fast dependency management. Questions? Email spinov001@gmail.com