The most popular scientific Python modules

I just scraped the scientific packages on pypi. Here are the top 50 by downloads.

Name Description Size Downloads
numpy NumPy: array processing for numbers, strings, records, and objects. 2000000 133076
scipy SciPy: Scientific Library for Python 7000000 33990
pygraphviz Python interface to Graphviz 99000 22828
geopy Python Geocoding Toolbox 32000 18617
googlemaps Easy geocoding, reverse geocoding, driving directions, and local search in Python via Google. 69000 15135
Rtree R-Tree spatial index for Python GIS 495000 14370
nltk Natural Language Toolkit 1000000 12844
Shapely Geometric objects, predicates, and operations 93000 12635
pyutilib.component.doc Documentation for the PyUtilib Component Architecture. 372000 10181
geojson Encoder/decoder for simple GIS features 12000 9407
GDAL GDAL: Geospatial Data Abstraction Library 410000 8957
scikits.audiolab A python module to make noise from numpy arrays 1000000 8856
pupynere NetCDF file reader and writer. 16000 8809
scikits.statsmodels Statistical computations and models for use with SciPy 3000000 8761
munkres munkres algorithm for the Assignment Problem 42000 8409
scikit-learn A set of python modules for machine learning and data mining 2000000 7735
networkx Python package for creating and manipulating graphs and networks 1009000 7652
pyephem Scientific-grade astronomy routines 927000 7644
PyBrain PyBrain is the swiss army knife for neural networking. 255000 7313
scikits.learn A set of python modules for machine learning and data mining 1000000 7088
obspy.seisan SEISAN read support for ObsPy. 3000000 6990
obspy.wav WAV(audio) read and write support for ObsPy. 241000 6985
obspy.seishub SeisHub database client for ObsPy. 237000 6941
obspy.sh Q and ASC (Seismic Handler) read and write support for ObsPy. 285000 6926
crcmod CRC Generator 128000 6714
obspy.fissures DHI/Fissures request client for ObsPy. 1000000 6339
stsci.distutils distutils/packaging-related utilities used by some of STScI’s packages 25000 6215
pyopencl Python wrapper for OpenCL 1000000 6124
Kivy A software library for rapid development of hardware-accelerated multitouch applications. 11000000 5879
speech A clean interface to Windows speech recognition and text-to-speech capabilities. 17000 5809
patsy A Python package for describing statistical models and for building design matrices. 276000 5517
periodictable Extensible periodic table of the elements 775000 5498
pymorphy Morphological analyzer (POS tagger + inflection engine) for Russian and English (+perhaps German) languages. 70000 5174
imposm.parser Fast and easy OpenStreetMap XML/PBF parser. 31000 4940
hcluster A hierarchical clustering package for Scipy. 442000 4761
obspy.core ObsPy – a Python framework for seismological observatories. 487000 4608
Pyevolve A complete python genetic algorithm framework 99000 4509
scikits.ann Approximate Nearest Neighbor library wrapper for Numpy 82000 4368
obspy.imaging Plotting routines for ObsPy. 324000 4356
obspy.xseed Dataless SEED, RESP and XML-SEED read and write support for ObsPy. 2000000 4331
obspy.sac SAC read and write support for ObsPy. 306000 4319
obspy.arclink ArcLink/WebDC client for ObsPy. 247000 4164
obspy.iris IRIS Web service client for ObsPy. 261000 4153
Orange Machine learning and interactive data mining toolbox. 14000000 4099
obspy.neries NERIES Web service client for ObsPy. 239000 4066
pandas Powerful data structures for data analysis, time series,and statistics 2000000 4037
pycuda Python wrapper for Nvidia CUDA 1000000 4030
GeoAlchemy Using SQLAlchemy with Spatial Databases 159000 3881
pyfits Reads FITS images and tables into numpy arrays and manipulates FITS headers 748000 3746
HTSeq A framework to process and analyze data from high-throughput sequencing (HTS) assays 523000 3720
pyopencv PyOpenCV – A Python wrapper for OpenCV 2.x using Boost.Python and NumPy 354000 3660
thredds THREDDS catalog generator. 25000 3622
hachoir-subfile Find subfile in any binary stream 16000 3540
fluid Procedures to study geophysical fluids on Python. 210000 3520
pygeocoder Python interface for Google Geocoding API V3. Can be used to easily geocode, reverse geocode, validate and format addresses. 7000 3514
csc-pysparse A fast sparse matrix library for Python (Commonsense Computing version) 111000 3455
topex A very simple library to interpret and load TOPEX/JASON altimetry data 7000 3378
arrayterator Buffered iterator for big arrays. 7000 3320
python-igraph High performance graph data structures and algorithms 3000000 3260
csvkit A library of utilities for working with CSV, the king of tabular file formats. 29000 3236
PyVISA Python VISA bindings for GPIB, RS232, and USB instruments 237000 3201
Quadtree Quadtree spatial index for Python GIS 40000 3000
ProxyHTTPServer ProxyHTTPServer — from the creator of PyWebRun 3000 2991
mpmath Python library for arbitrary-precision floating-point arithmetic 1000000 2901
bigfloat Arbitrary precision correctly-rounded floating point arithmetic, via MPFR. 126000 2879
SimPy Event discrete, process based simulation for Python. 5000000 2871
Delny Delaunay triangulation 18000 2790
pymc Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling toolkit. 1000000 2727
PyBUFR Pure Python library to encode and decode BUFR. 10000 2676
collective.geo.bundle Plone Maps (collective.geo) 11000 2676
dap DAP (Data Access Protocol) client and server for Python. 125000 2598
rq RQ is a simple, lightweight, library for creating background jobs, and processing them. 29000 2590
pyinterval Interval arithmetic in Python 397000 2558
StarCluster StarCluster is a utility for creating and managing computing clusters hosted on Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). 2000000 2521
fisher Fast Fisher’s Exact Test 43000 2503
mathdom MathDOM – Content MathML in Python 169000 2482
img2txt superseded by asciiporn, http://pypi.python.org/pypi/asciiporn 443000 2436
DendroPy A Python library for phylogenetics and phylogenetic computing: reading, writing, simulation, processing and manipulation of phylogenetic trees (phylogenies) and characters. 6000000 2349
geolocator geolocator library: locate places and calculate distances between them 26000 2342
MyProxyClient MyProxy Client 67000 2325
PyUblas Seamless Numpy-UBlas interoperability 51000 2252
oroboros Astrology software 1000000 2228
textmining Python Text Mining Utilities 1000000 2198
scikits.talkbox Talkbox, a set of python modules for speech/signal processing 147000 2188
asciitable Extensible ASCII table reader and writer 312000 2160
scikits.samplerate A python module for high quality audio resampling 368000 2151
tabular Tabular data container and associated convenience routines in Python 52000 2114
pywcs Python wrappers to WCSLIB 2000000 2081
DeliciousAPI Unofficial Python API for retrieving data from Delicious.com 19000 2038
hachoir-regex Manipulation of regular expressions (regex) 31000 2031
Kamaelia Kamaelia – Multimedia & Server Development Kit 2000000 2007
seawater Seawater Libray for Python 2000000 1985
descartes Use geometric objects as matplotlib paths and patches 3000 1983
vectorformats geographic data serialization/deserialization library 10000 1949
PyMT A framework for making accelerated multitouch UI 18000000 1945
times Times is a small, minimalistic, Python library for dealing with time conversions between universal time and arbitrary timezones. 4000 1929
CocoPy Python implementation of the famous CoCo/R LL(k) compiler generator. 302000 1913
django-shapes Upload and export shapefiles using GeoDjango. 9000 1901
sympy Computer algebra system (CAS) in Python 5000000 1842
pyfasta fast, memory-efficient, pythonic (and command-line) access to fasta sequence files 14000 1836

2 thoughts on “The most popular scientific Python modules”

  1. Ravindranath M

    Nice list Anand. Very useful.
    — This is Ravi from Comviva, who attended your introduction.

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