I've been using pip for over a decade. It's the default, it works, and I never questioned it. Then I tried uv from Astral (the creators of Ruff), and I can't go back. Here's why.
The Speed Difference is Absurd
Let's start with the most obvious win: uv is 10-100x faster than pip.
I timed installing Django with a fresh virtual environment:
# pip
time pip install django
# ~45 seconds
# uv
time uv pip install django
# ~2 seconds
That's not a typo. 2 seconds vs 45 seconds for the same package. On larger projects with dozens of dependencies, I've seen pip take 5+ minutes while uv finishes in 20 seconds.
Why? uv is written in Rust and uses parallel downloads, aggressive caching, and optimized dependency resolution. pip is written in Python and does everything sequentially.
Drop-in Replacement (Mostly)
The beautiful thing about uv is you don't need to relearn anything:
pip commands
pip install requests
pip install -r requirements.txt
pip freeze > requirements.txt
uv equivalents (just add 'uv' prefix)
uv pip install requests
uv pip install -r requirements.txt
uv pip freeze > requirements.txt
Your existing requirements.txt files work as-is. Your CI/CD scripts need minimal changes.
Better Virtual Environment Management
pip doesn't create virtual environments - you need venv or virtualenv for that. uv does it all:
The old way
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate # or .venv\Scripts\activate on Windows
pip install -r requirements.txt
The uv way
uv venv
source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install -r requirements.txt
Or even simpler - uv can run commands in the venv automatically
uv run python script.py
uv run pytest
uv run automatically finds or creates a virtual environment and runs your command in it. No more "wait, did I activate my venv?" moments.
Lockfiles That Actually Work
pip's requirements.txt doesn't lock transitive dependencies by default. This means:
requirements.txt
flask==3.0.0
Flask depends on Werkzeug, but you don't control which version gets installed. Next month, Werkzeug releases a breaking change, and suddenly your app breaks in production.
uv solves this with uv.lock:
uv pip compile requirements.in -o requirements.txt
This generates a fully locked requirements.txt with exact versions of every dependency and sub-dependency. True reproducible builds.
Even better, uv can maintain a uv.lock file automatically:
uv lock
This creates a lockfile similar to package-lock.json or Cargo.lock, with hashes for security.
When pip Might Still Be Better
To be fair, there are a few cases where pip still makes sense:
-Legacy systems where you can't install new tools
-Super constrained environments where you need pure Python (uv requires downloading a binary)
-Custom package indexes with complex authentication (uv's support is still evolving)
But for 95% of developers, uv is the better choice.
The Bottom Line
I was skeptical at first. "Another Python tool to learn?" But uv isn't asking you to learn something new - it's doing what pip does, just dramatically faster and with better defaults.
The speed alone is worth it. The first time you see a uv pip install complete in 2 seconds vs pip's 45 seconds, you'll never want to go back.
Try it on your next project. I bet you'll be converted too.
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