uv vs Zero Install
uv
docs.astral.shZero Install
0install.netSide by side
| Figure | uv | Zero Install |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Package Managers | 8.9 (#4) | 7.7 (#60) |
| Integrations | The documentation lists integrations and guides for Docker, Jupyter, marimo, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, Pre-commit, PyTorch, FastAPI, and several package registries. | Zero Install can use packages installed by a Linux distribution and can use PackageKit to install system packages when no Zero Install package is available. |
| Security | uv uses TLS with rustls and bundled Mozilla root certificates by default to verify HTTPS connections. | The project says package signatures are checked before new software runs and caching a package does not run its code or write to system software directories. |
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.
Zero Install
Zero Install has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.