Products · Product
Pipenv
Raised as a usability problem by 44 people on Hacker News over 8 years (2018–2025), in 31 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Lockfile update takes around 30 minutes for a small projectUnreviewed
20182026- Trivial dependency conflicts it can't resolve, and it runs very slowly2025-10-30
- Upgrading one dependency took 43 seconds to resolve2024-10-30
- Dependency resolution routinely times out, making lockfile creation impossible for a large project2022-12-21
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 46 complaints
- Trivial dependency conflicts it can't resolve, and it runs very slowly2025-10-30
- Upgrading one dependency took 43 seconds to resolve2024-10-30
- Prints non-error message to stderr on activation with no way to silence it2023-12-29
- Pipenv is slow and clunky to use for managing Python dependencies2023-10-19
- Frozen project fails on new machine; pinned Python version can't be installed2023-01-03
- Having to manually create virtual environments is mediocre user experience2022-12-21
- Dependency resolution routinely times out, making lockfile creation impossible for a large project2022-12-21
- Any lockfile change takes 30+ minutes to rebuild, slowing CI2022-02-04
- Dependency lockfile update takes around 30 minutes for a small project2022-01-24
- Installing a single dependency can take ten minutes, and workarounds lose locking2021-07-24
- Installing packages takes very long and times out2021-04-08
- Dependency resolution takes about 30 minutes, blocking fast CI/CD2021-02-03
- Pipenv is so slow to interact with that it is practically unusable2021-02-03
- Locking is resource intensive, noisy, and lock files are fragile, making CI failures hard to debug2020-06-02
- Commenter finds pipenv awful, without saying what goes wrong in use2020-04-02
- Confusingly overlapping tools make it unclear which one to use2020-04-02
- Installs are buggy and unpredictably slow, so the commenter moved away from it2019-12-13
- Confusing for people unfamiliar with Python packaging internals, and very slow2019-12-08
- Installing one package silently upgrades all dependencies, with no way to disable it2019-11-12
- Takes half an hour to add, remove or update any dependency2019-10-01
- Pipenv is so slow that the commenter stopped using it2019-09-24
- Making the Pipenv.lock file takes far too long2019-09-24
- Commenter calls pipenv unusable, with no specific problem described2019-05-04
- Must manually write out SemVer version ranges, which is tedious2019-02-18
- Pipenv is slow and idiosyncratic, with the Python package management experience worse than Ruby's2019-01-10
- Confusing CLI; unclear when install touches the lock file and unrelated packages2018-12-12
- Author must repeatedly google how to create or export an environment2018-12-06
- Must run shell commands to use the environment, unlike npm's automatic node_modules lookup2018-12-06
- Breaks in confusing ways if the right Python version isn't already installed2018-12-06
- Installing packages with extras breaks the lockfile, forcing manual sed edits after every install2018-12-06
- CLI options conflict and behave unpredictably, outside the narrow happy path it becomes maddening2018-12-05
- Packages go to a hidden directory, unclear how to clean up and whether sudo is needed2018-12-05
- Every command must be prefixed and runs in a new shell, which is tedious2018-12-05
- Dependency fetching is so slow it is almost unbearable to use2018-12-04
- Setup breaks differently each release, costing hours of new errors and workarounds2018-11-18
- Apps only launch when the working directory is the Pipfile directory, requiring extra cd and shell steps2018-10-19
- Pipenv is so slow to run that it frustrates the user2018-10-18
- Unclear how to install pipenv, and why pipsi requires it2018-10-18
- Package management is too slow and the overall user experience is poor2018-10-18
- Tool feels painfully slow to use, and frustrating in day-to-day work2018-10-17
- Unclear how to configure pipenv's virtualenv location, especially with Docker2018-10-12
- Unclear which pipenv command to use in CI; needs awkward workarounds to avoid recreating the virtualenv2018-07-25
- Slow, ignores pip.conf, lacks proxy option, prefers environment variables over CLI flags2018-05-20
- Re-locking after updating one dependency takes about a minute2018-04-30
- Output is confusing: picks a different Python interpreter than expected and gives unclear progress feedback2018-04-30
- Verbose, colourful, emoji-laden output buries what matters and is hard to read2018-04-14