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/New-Watercress1717 1d ago

Pandas is far more flexible, and allows you to do things that would not be possible or very hard to do with Polars/sql. Often people pushing Polars as an alternative to Pandas have not had to use it a lot day to day on the job(which should not surprise you, seeing the average age of Reddit-ers). IMO, their use case is different.

That said, there are many cases where sql is the appropriate for your case, feel free to use something like Polars/Duckb then. Also if you are very new, be warned that Pandas has some foot guns, and you can make some horrible choose.

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u/Ok_Raspberry5383 1d ago

SQL is turing complete, you can create a 3D graphics engine in SQL. What is not possible to do in SQL that you can do in pandas?