Looking at the Organizations Behind the Tools

00:00 Let’s talk about the organizations behind these tools. uv is backed by Astral, which is a private company that’s focused on high-performance Python tooling.

00:10 And yes, Astral has been gathering some good karma within the Python community. But it’s important to note that Astral still is a private company, so the Python community will benefit from the tools as long as Astral’s objectives are aligned with those of the Python community, which isn’t necessarily always going to be the case.

00:32 The Python community hopes so, but there’s nothing we can do to prevent Astral from changing the way they develop their tools or how they charge us for them, which as of now, is they don’t charge.

00:44 You can use uv for free. And this is in contrast with pip, which is supported by PyPA or the Python Packaging Authority, which is a working group that is a part of the Python Software Foundation.

00:57 And in case you don’t know, the Python Software Foundation is the legal entity that’s behind Python, the language. And this means pip is fundamentally a core part of the Python language.

01:08 It’s not going anywhere because it’s backed by the Python Software Foundation itself. And this leads us to a very clear way of determining whether you may need to go with pip or not, which is based on your tolerance for uncertainty.

01:24 If you cannot tolerate any uncertainty, then pip is your clear choice, because pip is not going anywhere. Now, if you can tolerate some uncertainty, especially if that brings other benefits to the table, then you have to watch along because uv might be the tool for you depending on the other criteria we’re going to be looking at.

01:44 Up next, you’re going to learn about tool availability and how that can impact your choice between uv and pip.