Shards vs uv
Shards
github.com
uv
docs.astral.shSide by side
| Figure | Shards | uv |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 1 |
| Spec score · Package Managers | 7.4 (#74) | 8.9 (#4) |
| Dependency resolution | Yes | Yes |
| Distribution | Shards is usually distributed with Crystal, and a separate shards package may be available for a user's system. | uv can be installed with a standalone installer, PyPI, Homebrew, MacPorts, WinGet, Scoop, Docker, GitHub Releases, or Cargo. |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Intended users | The project README describes its use for Crystal applications and libraries. | Astral says it builds high-performance developer tools for the Python ecosystem to help developers ship software faster. |
| Lockfile support | Yes | Yes |
| Package formats | Crystal shards defined in shard.yml | source distributions,wheels,requirements.txt,pylock.toml |
| Purpose | Shards is a dependency manager for the Crystal language. | uv is an extremely fast Python package and project manager written in Rust. |
| Supported platforms | Linux,macOS,Windows | 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.