---
title: "UV the new python package installer written in Rust"
date: 2024-02-23
draft: true
slug: "uv-the-new-python-package-installer-written-in-rust"
tags: ["ci/cd", "docker", "python", "tools"]
type: "programming"
---

## Overview


## UV benchmark
Let's compare UV and VENV/PIP to see how this new solution performs: according to the creators, UV should be around 80x faster than `python -m venv` and 7x faster than `virtualenv`.

After creating virtual environments with these different tools, I was able to obtain the following results:

{{< chart >}}
type: 'bar',
data: {
  labels: ['uv', 'virtualenv', 'venv'],
  datasets: [{
    data: [0.010, 0.153, 1.539],
  }]
},
options: {
  indexAxis: 'y',
  elements: {
    bar: {
      borderWidth: 2,
    }
  },
  responsive: true,
  plugins: {
    legend: {
      display: false,
    },
    title: {
      display: true,
      text: 'Virtual environment creation'
    }
  }
}
{{< /chart >}}

In my case, UV is ~15x faster than `virtualenv` and ~150x faster than `python -m venv`. I then tried installing python packets with UV and PIP to compare speeds:

{{< chart >}}
type: 'bar',
data: {
  labels: ['uv', 'uv+cache', 'pip'],
  datasets: [{
    data: [2.961, 0.413, 13.917],
  }]
},
options: {
  indexAxis: 'y',
  elements: {
    bar: {
      borderWidth: 2,
    }
  },
  responsive: true,
  plugins: {
    legend: {
      display: false,
    },
    title: {
      display: true,
      text: 'Packages install (~100)'
    }
  }
}
{{< /chart >}}

For packet insertion I find that UV is ~5x faster than pip and ~33x faster then `pip` with the UV cache.

## Docker image for CI/CD
UV

```dockerfile
FROM python:3.11-slim

RUN python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip && \
    pip3 install uv && \
    uv venv && \
    . /.venv/bin/activate && \
    uv pip install ruff

ENV VIRTUAL_ENV /.venv
ENV PATH /.venv/bin:$PATH
```

```bash
debian@debian:~/dev/images$ docker build -t uv_python .
[...]
debian@debian:~/dev/images$ docker run -it --rm uv_python bash
root@ec910e7ea8eb:/# uv pip install django
Resolved 3 packages in 483ms
Downloaded 3 packages in 584ms
Installed 3 packages in 150ms
 + asgiref==3.7.2
 + django==5.0.2
 + sqlparse==0.4.4
root@ec910e7ea8eb:/# python3
Python 3.11.8 (main, Feb  7 2024, 22:49:54) [GCC 12.2.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import django
>>>
```

```yml
[...]
variables:
  UV_CACHE_DIR: "$CI_PROJECT_DIR/.cache/uv"

cache:
  - key: uv-pip-cache
    paths:
      - $CI_PROJECT_DIR/.cache/uv
[...]
```