The best integrated development environments (IDEs) for Python provide an easy way to run and test code with python.
An integrated development environment (IDE) allows you to run programming code written in different programming languages, and having an IDE to run Python is important because of the increasingly popular use of Python in a range of computer and scientific applications, underscored by the rise of analytics and business intelligence (opens in a new tab).
While very simple programs do not require specialized tools, once past that stage, some form of IDE becomes necessary, but there are several different types and some are better at supporting some languages than others. Also, some IDEs have limits on how much code you can use, though they’re often free to compensate, while paid IDEs allow for much more freedom.
There are a
surprising number of options out there, and the open source mentality (opens in a new tab) that underpins much of the coding community also applies here, so there are quite a few free tools available. As programming is an increasingly important business sector, especially for cloud services as well as general business applications (opens in a new tab), there are also paid tools that aim to offer more.
Whichever Python IDE you choose to run with, at the very least you’ll want an application that highlights syntax, code folding, and bracket matching, has some knowledge of a project’s constituent source files, and can execute the code you’re working on. More advanced features may include code hints, a debugger, and integration with online repositories.
Here we present the best IDEs for Python that are currently available.
We have also listed the best online courses to learn Python.
Best IDE for Python of 2023 in its entirety
:
IDLE)
It’s easy to overlook IDLE, Python’s own bespoke integrated development environment. IDLE (named after Eric Idle of Monty Python) is pretty minimal compared to some of the other offerings, but it has everything you need and certainly won’t stand in your way.
It is coded in Python and uses the lightweight tkinter toolkit to draw its GUI. Launching IDLE will open a Python shell, just as you get when you start Python from the terminal. You can play with code snippets here, with the advantage that the keywords and output will be well colored.
Continuing from here, you can open a new window to start coding properly. The code will be properly highlighted and automatically indented, with a configurable indent level. IDLE supports the use of spaces or tabs for indentation, and can automatically convert between the two, plus it can indent multiple lines at once.
IDLE lacks project management facilities, but that’s not a problem if your project encompasses only a handful of files. It has a powerful debugger that allows a single pass through the code or pass through each high-level function. The debugger displays the call stack as well as the status of local and global variables.
Studio Code,
or Code for short, is an open source editor owned by Microsoft. The code has become popular among developers, and is a good choice for your Python projects as well, once you have installed the Python extension, ie.
The code has
its own debugger, supports linting, and has integration with all sorts of source control tools. It has a built-in terminal too, and a well-stocked extension market (don’t worry, they’re free). You can also run and debug your project’s unit tests through the unittest, pytest, or nose frameworks.
If this all sounds too much, it also has a minimalist ‘zen mode’ that shows you only the file you’re working on, hiding not only Code’s interface, but the rest of your desktop as well.
The code is highly configurable and has a configuration panel that will delight those with a certain mentality: each section displays the corresponding section of the settings.json file, all nicely highlighted, of course.
Like Atom, the code is an Electron app, so it’s cross-platform and a bit bulky. Unlike Atom, it has support for Intellisense, Microsoft’s own version of code completion. For Python, in addition to suggesting endings, this also provides on-the-fly pop-ups that show documentation of classes and methods.
Read our full Visual Studio Code review (opens in a new tab).
powerful cross-platform IDE, which, like IDLE, is named after Eric Idle, is written in Python and uses the Qt library. Although Python is their approach, eric (lowercase is the desired spelling) has excellent support for Ruby and other languages as well. It supports the bread and butter tasks we’ve come to expect: code folding, code completion, key matching.
But there’s a lot more you’ll have to use its built-in (and automated) to-do list generation to keep track of. It has a built-in class browser and a powerful debugger, and because Qt is integrated it supports GUI creation via Qt Designer. The initial setup screen may seem daunting, but most of it can be postponed to later.
While the interface seems busy, there’s no reason you can’t use eric as a simple code editor (or even plain text). But it really comes into itself for more serious coding – there’s even a built-in hex editor, SQL browser and icon designer. It supports unit testing and can debug multithreaded and multiprocessing programs, which as anyone who dabbles in such things will testify, generate the worst kind of errors.
It supports Mercurial and SVN version control natively, and Git support is available through a plugin. Like code, there’s support for real-time collaboration in code. In short, if you want feature-rich Python powerhouse, eric is for you.
PyDev is the Python IDE
running on Eclipse, which is already a very popular open source IDE for several programming languages, and is well supported with a wide range of plugins to help add features.
comes with a range of useful coding features, such as code autocompletion, debugging, coding and analysis templates, as well as a browser for testing code.
There is also an integration option to work with the Django Python web framework, as well as offer support for Jython and IronPython development
. If there’s
one downside, it’s that there’s so much coding support available that some users may find it somewhat bloated. However, it remains one of the open-source Python IDEs, if not the most popular, for exactly the same reason.
As it is
open source, it is free to use and easily provides enough features to support basic to intermediate programming. For more advanced programming, LiClipse is a paid tier that runs with Eclipse to offer more personalized options.
is the least ‘developer-centric’ of all the IDEs we’ve highlighted here, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less powerful. It has been developed at the University of Tartu in Estonia, and is written in Python. It features a powerful debugger that’s ideal for learning the ins and outs of coding without worrying about how breakpoints work.
The debugger can show you the status of variables as the program runs. It allows you to take small or large steps through the program, which is great if you’re tracking hard-to-find errors. This is a much better practice that, as beginners and experienced coders are occasionally tempted to do, pepper your code with messy print() instructions.
Thonny will automatically indent as you type, which is useful for anyone new to Python since the language uses indentation to outline functions, loops, classes, clauses, etc. It will autocomplete your code and provide matches between brackets and parentheses. It will also usefully highlight any syntax errors.
It would be ideal for beginners, but for the fact that it is a bit difficult to install if you are not familiar with Python packages and in particular pip (a package manager for Python). That said, it’s included as standard in new versions of Raspbian and fits well into Raspberry Pi projects. It’s a shame that other distributions don’t include Thonny in their repositories.
More
Python IDE Wing IDE
101 (opens in a new tab) is a simple and free Python IDE intended to help new programmers get used to coding in Python. There are a number of resources to help with training, and Wing IDE 101 is available for download for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
CodeSkulptor (opens in a new tab) is a browser-based IDE for Python. The goal is to provide an easy-to-use platform for people new to Python to practice their programming skills. This makes it especially ideal for groups, as it means they will be using the same version and code editor, and this becomes even more useful if users don’t have to download and install software directly.
PyScripter (opens in a new tab) is an open-source IDE that includes many of the basic features required, such as a syntax highlighting editor, built-in Python interpreter and debugger, project and file explorer, as well as the ability to customize and run a Python script externally.
PyCharm (opens in new tab) is a Python IDE for professional developers provided by JetBrains, making it’s a paid program. There is an impressive set of tools included, such as smart assistance, web development frameworks, scientific tools, cross-technology development, and a large collection of development tools included.
We have also chosen the best laptop for programming. (opens in a new tab)
