Heh, looks like they've just pivoted to calling what they do advancing AI and managed to mention AI enough times to get a big new valuation.
Seriously, if you've ever used them before, check out their website now. "Advance AI with Clarity and Confidence", "Simplify, safeguard, and accelerate AI value with open source.", "Millions Rely on Anaconda to Advance Their AI Initiatives"
What does any of that mean? No idea, seems like the actual product is the same conda.
Everyone who is comparing Anaconda and conda to Astral and uv is missing that the conda ecosystem is language-agnostic while uv is python specific. uv won't help you install gfortran, for example. It is not a replacement, unless you only do python (and use at most common non-python libraries that are available on PyPI).
On the other hand you don't have to use anything associated with Anaconda to use the conda ecosystem. Alternative package managers like mamba and pixi rely on the conda-forge channel instead. Pixi in particular (https://pixi.sh/) is sort-of the uv for the conda ecosystem workflow-wise, and works pretty well if you want that.
I admit I'm not super well versed in what conda's main uses are. Python's whole tooling situation has felt like a nightmare & I've tried to keep far away, but I've had to face it a lot more recently because it's so prevalent for AI. Thankfully uv seems to have done a huge amount of what I need.
Still, if the concern is language-agnostic ways to use tooling, mise (nee rtx) is the 1000 pound gorilla in the room today. Incredibly fast well built Rust based tool that has really massively expanded in scope & offerings, with grace & elegance. I thought it was an asdf replacement, for installing/using toolchains, for .tool-versions files. But it's really grown to be a lot more, capable of letting you isolatedly manage tools it can install from a huge variety of backends (pip, npm, cargo, others). https://mise.jdx.dev/dev-tools/backends/
And how many people (count them with fingers) use Conda for anything other than Python? It’s a bloatware. People stopped using Conda because these people kept making the bloat worse.
If you are in a commercial environment, I can only warn to think that using alternative conda clients will be safe. Condaforge for instance will happily download from the main channel if the recipe requires it. It's pretty hard to make sure this does not happen, best solution is to block access on a network level.
Astral's uv is an impressive, ultra-fast Python package manager that’s rapidly clearing up the pip/virtualenv/poetry mess and setting a new bar for dx. However, Astral is a startup with an unclear path to monetization, whereas Anaconda is a mature company focused on enterprise AI/ML offerings and long-term customer relationships, with conda being just one part of their broader stack. It’s entirely plausible for Anaconda to adopt tools like uv. Comparing Astral and Anaconda directly overlooks their vastly different missions and scales—uv’s technical leap could help unify Python tooling, but Anaconda addresses a different problem.
I work with less technical users and the problem with UV is that the installation instructions are slightly more complicated.
For users that just want conda to download python + a bunch of packages and won't ever bother to create environments, anaconda will always be superior.
Now, if UV bundles with a "default python version" with an installer, that may change things.
the other use case is if your env requires compiled binaries, you can't do that with uv. i.e., the Intel MKL package is available on conda but not on pypi. We've also run into this with some cuda related packages.
Where's Anaconda at these days? I've not touched it since starting out with Python and don't think I've touched it since discovering other package managers.
Anyone here using it regularly in 2025, is there anything I'm missing out on?
Everywhere where they may be a shadow data science team. And that's how they get you. One has to be very careful to install the Open Source portions. They make no effort to make the boundary obvious. If one does not, IT will get a call asking for licensing money.
Setting up a python environment for ML work (pytorch + Nvidia) is simpler with Anaconda, it's a pure dependency nightmare doing it with something else.
Anaconda sells a managed environment for data science applications, right? Basically the Red Hat business model?
I've used conda for years and haven't set aside the day it'll take to switch to something simple and modern (uv's top of the list, but I'm open to suggestions)
Today started with coffee and hopes for a new Jon Voight vehicle in theaters next summer. Now it's coffee and disappointment in yet another AI offering no one asked for.
Wait, is this anaconda python, my favorite python installation? Oh no, it's now an AI company? Is my favorite python installation going to get enshittified?
Anaconda makes less sense to me, but cursor does have revenue numbers. I haven't seen them so I'm not sure if they look good (we use API keys with cursor so I'm pretty sure they get pure saas margins from us)
I would also venture to guess that cursor is a somewhat nontrivial modification to vscode at this point.
Heh, looks like they've just pivoted to calling what they do advancing AI and managed to mention AI enough times to get a big new valuation.
Seriously, if you've ever used them before, check out their website now. "Advance AI with Clarity and Confidence", "Simplify, safeguard, and accelerate AI value with open source.", "Millions Rely on Anaconda to Advance Their AI Initiatives"
What does any of that mean? No idea, seems like the actual product is the same conda.
Anaconda != the conda ecosystem != Python
Everyone who is comparing Anaconda and conda to Astral and uv is missing that the conda ecosystem is language-agnostic while uv is python specific. uv won't help you install gfortran, for example. It is not a replacement, unless you only do python (and use at most common non-python libraries that are available on PyPI).
On the other hand you don't have to use anything associated with Anaconda to use the conda ecosystem. Alternative package managers like mamba and pixi rely on the conda-forge channel instead. Pixi in particular (https://pixi.sh/) is sort-of the uv for the conda ecosystem workflow-wise, and works pretty well if you want that.
I admit I'm not super well versed in what conda's main uses are. Python's whole tooling situation has felt like a nightmare & I've tried to keep far away, but I've had to face it a lot more recently because it's so prevalent for AI. Thankfully uv seems to have done a huge amount of what I need.
Still, if the concern is language-agnostic ways to use tooling, mise (nee rtx) is the 1000 pound gorilla in the room today. Incredibly fast well built Rust based tool that has really massively expanded in scope & offerings, with grace & elegance. I thought it was an asdf replacement, for installing/using toolchains, for .tool-versions files. But it's really grown to be a lot more, capable of letting you isolatedly manage tools it can install from a huge variety of backends (pip, npm, cargo, others). https://mise.jdx.dev/dev-tools/backends/
And how many people (count them with fingers) use Conda for anything other than Python? It’s a bloatware. People stopped using Conda because these people kept making the bloat worse.
If you are in a commercial environment, I can only warn to think that using alternative conda clients will be safe. Condaforge for instance will happily download from the main channel if the recipe requires it. It's pretty hard to make sure this does not happen, best solution is to block access on a network level.
Going up against Astral in 2025 with conda's stack is feeding 150MM directly into a furnace.
Astral's uv is an impressive, ultra-fast Python package manager that’s rapidly clearing up the pip/virtualenv/poetry mess and setting a new bar for dx. However, Astral is a startup with an unclear path to monetization, whereas Anaconda is a mature company focused on enterprise AI/ML offerings and long-term customer relationships, with conda being just one part of their broader stack. It’s entirely plausible for Anaconda to adopt tools like uv. Comparing Astral and Anaconda directly overlooks their vastly different missions and scales—uv’s technical leap could help unify Python tooling, but Anaconda addresses a different problem.
$50m more than Oxide Computer, a company actually building something, just raised. For what exactly? A free python distro, doing some vague AI pivot?
For people asking who uses Anaconda nowadays.
I work with less technical users and the problem with UV is that the installation instructions are slightly more complicated.
For users that just want conda to download python + a bunch of packages and won't ever bother to create environments, anaconda will always be superior.
Now, if UV bundles with a "default python version" with an installer, that may change things.
the other use case is if your env requires compiled binaries, you can't do that with uv. i.e., the Intel MKL package is available on conda but not on pypi. We've also run into this with some cuda related packages.
Where's Anaconda at these days? I've not touched it since starting out with Python and don't think I've touched it since discovering other package managers.
Anyone here using it regularly in 2025, is there anything I'm missing out on?
Everywhere where they may be a shadow data science team. And that's how they get you. One has to be very careful to install the Open Source portions. They make no effort to make the boundary obvious. If one does not, IT will get a call asking for licensing money.
Setting up a python environment for ML work (pytorch + Nvidia) is simpler with Anaconda, it's a pure dependency nightmare doing it with something else.
Anaconda sells a managed environment for data science applications, right? Basically the Red Hat business model?
I've used conda for years and haven't set aside the day it'll take to switch to something simple and modern (uv's top of the list, but I'm open to suggestions)
Anaconda has 150mm in annual recurring revenue? That's excellent news. It'll be interesting to see how this investment helps them grow.
> This news comes on the heels of Anaconda’s newly launched AI Platform
Ahh makes sense now.
The efficient hand of capitalism at work once again allocating capital to the most effective endeavours.
Today started with coffee and hopes for a new Jon Voight vehicle in theaters next summer. Now it's coffee and disappointment in yet another AI offering no one asked for.
150M from people who never used Anaconda...
I cannot imagine using Anaconda with how many issues I had. Virtual Environments have been superior.
Congratulations to Astral (makers of uv).
At these valuations you are now all billionaires. You have earned the commas and car doors that open like \__/.
Unfortunately they've made the mistake of calling their Python package manager a Python package manager, rather than the secret to advancing AI.
What is their revenue?
other than having "AI" in the name, I didn't see anything about its "AI Platform" that's actually AI in a meaningful way
To be fair, the easiest way to maintain dependencies for computing on GPUs is defintely conda. Anything else requires a bunch more manual toil.
Wait, is this anaconda python, my favorite python installation? Oh no, it's now an AI company? Is my favorite python installation going to get enshittified?
That happened last year, when they changed their license terms and started shaking people down for money. I wouldn't touch it.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/08/anaconda_puts_the_squ...
https://licenseware.io/retrospective-on-anacondas-2024-licen...
https://www.cdotrends.com/story/4173/anaconda-threatens-lega...
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/intel-sued-copyrigh...
Just replace it with Miniforge: https://conda-forge.org/download/
Is it just me or is trivial software getting overfunded? How does an AI skin on vscode or conda have a big enough moat for these crazy rounds?
Anaconda makes less sense to me, but cursor does have revenue numbers. I haven't seen them so I'm not sure if they look good (we use API keys with cursor so I'm pretty sure they get pure saas margins from us)
I would also venture to guess that cursor is a somewhat nontrivial modification to vscode at this point.
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