The Python Package Index, abbreviated as PyPI and also known as the Cheese Shop (a reference to the Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch "Cheese Shop"),: 8 : 742 is the official third-party software repository for Python. It is analogous to the CPAN repository for Perl: 36 and to the CRAN repository for R. PyPI is run by the Python Software Foundation, a charity. Some package managers, including pip, use PyPI as the default source for packages and their dependencies.
As of 6 May 2024,[update] more than 530,000 Python packages are available.
PyPI primarily hosts Python packages in the form of source archives, called "sdists", or of "wheels" that may contain binary modules from a compiled language.
PyPI as an index allows users to search for packages by keywords or by filters against their metadata, such as free software license or compatibility with POSIX. A single entry on PyPI is able to store, aside from just a package and its metadata, previous releases of the package, precompiled wheels (e.g. containing DLLs on Windows), as well as different forms for different operating systems and Python versions.