pkg_add vs uv
pkg_add
man.openbsd.org
uv
docs.astral.shSide by side
| Figure | pkg_add | uv |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Package Managers | 7.8 (#50) | 8.9 (#4) |
| Dependency resolution | Yes | Yes |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Intended users | OpenBSD's package FAQ advises using packages over building applications from ports in general. | Astral says it builds high-performance developer tools for the Python ecosystem to help developers ship software faster. |
| Offline installation | Yes | Yes |
| Package formats | TGZ,gzip-compressed ustar archives with packing lists | source distributions,wheels,requirements.txt,pylock.toml |
| Purpose | pkg_add installs or updates software packages created from the OpenBSD ports tree. | uv is an extremely fast Python package and project manager written in Rust. |
| Security | By default, it rejects unsigned packages unless they come from a trusted source or unsigned packages are explicitly allowed. | uv uses TLS with rustls and bundled Mozilla root certificates by default to verify HTTPS connections. |
| Supported platforms | OpenBSD alpha,amd64,arm64,armv7,hppa,i386,landisk,luna88k,macppc,octeon,powerpc64,riscv64,sparc64 | macOS,Linux,Windows,CPython,PyPy,Pyodide,GraalPy |
Plans
In their own words
uv
uv is a Python package and project manager for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Written in Rust, it manages dependencies and environments, with lockfiles and workspaces, and can install, list, pin, or uninstall Python versions. It also runs scripts with dependencies and runs or installs command-line tools from Python packages. Its pip-compatible interface is intended to cover work done by tools such as pip, pip-tools, pipx, poetry, pyenv, twine, and virtualenv, though its commands do not exactly match those tools. The documentation describes uv as 10–100x faster than pip. It supports source distributions, wheels, requirements.txt, and pylock.toml, as well as offline installation and private registry authentication. For package selection, its default first-index strategy limits candidates to the first index where a package is found. Credentials are not stored in uv.lock, but uv currently stores them in a plaintext file; native system secret storage is an experimental preview. The free plan is free.