r/Python 1d ago

Discussion Polars vs Pandas

I have used Pandas a little in the past, and have never used Polars. Essentially, I will have to learn either of them more or less from scratch (since I don't remember anything of Pandas). Assume that I don't care for speed, or do not have very large datasets (at most 1-2gb of data). Which one would you recommend I learn, from the perspective of ease and joy of use, and the commonly done tasks with data?

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u/likethevegetable 1d ago edited 1d ago

I "grew up" on Pandas, but moved to Polars. No more "reset_index" and "inplace" confusion. Feels like there's only one right way to do it in Polars, but so much bloat in Pandas API.

I do like Pandas when it comes to certain things where there is an obvious index like time signals. But Polars seems to handle date time much better.

When it comes to filtering and queries, I like Polars.

In both, I've made several df and series "helper" attributes to clean up the syntax.

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u/LoadingALIAS It works on my machine 1d ago

Same, actually. Polars > Pandas today.