"Warn about PyPy being unmaintained"

(github.com)

129 points | by networked 6 hours ago

10 comments

  • mattip 1 hour ago
    PyPy core dev here. If anyone is interested in helping out, either financially or with coding, we can be reached various ways. See https://pypy.org/contact.html
  • pansa2 51 minutes ago
    PyPy is a fantastic achievement and deserves far more support than it gets. Microsoft’s “Faster CPython” team tried to make Python 5x faster but only achieved ~1.5x in four years - meanwhile PyPy has been running at over 5x faster for decades.

    On the other hand, I always got the impression that the main goal of PyPy is to be a research project (on meta-tracing, STM etc) rather than a replacement for CPython in production.

    Maybe that, plus the core Python team’s indifference towards non-CPython implementations, is why it doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.

  • the_jeremy 3 hours ago
    If anyone else is also barely aware and confused by the similar names, PyPI is the Python Package Index, which is up and maintained. PyPy is "A fast, compliant alternative implementation of Python." which doesn't have enough devs to release a version for 3.12[0].

    [0]: https://github.com/orgs/pypy/discussions/5145

    • darkwater 12 minutes ago
      Thanks for the clarification. On top of that, being an issue in the 'uv' GitHub repo (uv installs packages from PyPi) made my brain easily cross the letters.
    • blahgeek 1 hour ago
      Reminds me of Cython vs CPython
    • Muhammad523 2 hours ago
      Thanks. I knew this already but keep forgetting and getting confused
    • with 2 hours ago
      Thanks, I also saw this as PyPI and was confused, lol
      • chii 1 hour ago
        now somebody just needs to make a PiPy for the raspberry pi
        • zugi 1 hour ago
          Is that PiPyPy or PiPyPI?
  • aragilar 3 hours ago
    Somewhat interesting that "volunteer project no longer under active development" got changed to "unmaintained".
    • maxloh 2 hours ago
      For context, they have 2 to 4 commits per month since October [1]. The last release was July 2025 [2].

      [1]: https://github.com/pypy/pypy/commits/main/

      [2]: https://github.com/pypy/pypy/tags

    • electroglyph 31 minutes ago
      much respect to the PyPy contributors, but it seems like a pretty fair assessment
    • killingtime74 3 hours ago
      What euphemism do you prefer then...
      • aragilar 1 hour ago
        There's a difference between dead (i.e. "unmaintained") and low activity ("not under active development"). From what I can see PyPy is in the latter category (and being in that category does not mean it's going to die soon), so choosing to claim it is unmaintained is notable.
        • Hamuko 1 hour ago
          Being three major versions behind CPython is definitely not a great sign for the long-term viability of it.
          • saghm 27 minutes ago
            I'm not sure "major versions" is the most correct term here, but I think your point is spot on
            • Hamuko 12 minutes ago
              For Python, 0.1 increases are major versions and 1.0 increases are cataclysmic shifts.
      • kev009 2 hours ago
        Undermaintained might be more suited since it does have life but doesn't appear commercially healthy nor apparently relevant to other communities.
  • didip 3 hours ago
    wow, that would be a big shame. I hope many of the useful learnings are already ported to CPython.
    • mkl 2 hours ago
      Almost none of it will have been ported to CPython, as it's a completely different approach.
      • skissane 1 hour ago
        I really like PyPy’s approach of using a Python dialect (RPython) as the implementation language, instead of C. From a conceptual perspective, it is much more elegant. And there are other C-like Python dialects now too - Cython, mypy’s mypyc. It would be a shame if PyPy dies.
  • scosman 49 minutes ago
    Read as PyPi and almost had heart attack
  • shevy-java 29 minutes ago
    What annoys me is the name. Early morning it took me a moment to realise that PyPy is not PyPi, so at first I thought they referred to PyPi. Really, just for the name confusion alone, one of those two should have to go.

    Edit: I understand the underlying issue and the PyPy developer's opinion. I don't disagree on that part; I only refer to the name similarity as a problem.

  • doctorpangloss 2 hours ago
    knowing pypy has good implementations of a lot of behavior it helped me fix multiprocessing in Maya's python interpreter, fixing stuff like torch running inside of Maya.

    it's too bad. it is a great project for a million little use cases.

  • anonnon 1 hour ago
    Odd how you still see announcements of this nature if Anthropic's marketing is be believed.
    • QQ00 19 minutes ago
      Anthropic released vibe coded C compiler that doesn't work, how their LLM can help in maintaining PyPy?
    • Hamuko 1 hour ago
      Most maintainers don't have a stack of cash to throw at tokens.
    • dapperdrake 1 hour ago
      "You're completely right. That mushroom is poisonous."
  • Imustaskforhelp 2 hours ago
    @kvinogradov (Open source endowment), I am (Pinging?) you because I think that you may be of help as I remember you stating that within the Open source endowment and the approach of how & which open source projects are better funded[0]

    And I think that PyPy might be of interest to the Fund for sponsoring given its close to unmaintained. PyPy is really great in general speeding up Python[1] by magnitudes of order.

    Maybe the fund could be of help in order to help paying the maintainer who are underfunded which lead to the situation being unmaintained in the first place. Pinging you because I am interested to hear your response and hopefully, see PyPy having better funding model for its underfunded maintainers.

    [0]: https://endowment.dev/about/#model

    [1]: https://benjdd.com/languages2/ (Refer to PyPY and Python difference being ~15x)

    • skissane 1 hour ago
      > @kvinogradov (Open source endowment), I am (Pinging?) you

      unfortunately, @-pinging does not work on this site, it does nothing to notify anyone. If you want to get a specific person’s attention, use off-site communication mechanisms

    • pinkmuffinere 1 hour ago
      HN doesn’t have this sort of pinging behavior :/