Explain the difference between global Python packages and packages installed within a virtual environment?

Difference between global and virtual environment Python packages

The main difference between a package installed within a virtual environment and a package installed globally lies in their scope and isolation.

Scope:

Package installations within a virtual environment: If you create and activate a virtual environment, any pip installations you perform will only be available within that environment. Virtual environments and system-wide Python installations will not be affected by the packages, which are restricted to the directory structure of the virtual environment.

Package installed globally: When you install a package globally using pip without a virtual environment, the package is installed in the system-wide Python installation. This means the package is available to all Python projects on your system and can be used by any Python script or project.

Isolation:

Packages installed within a virtual environment: Virtual environments isolate packages installed within them. Installed packages are stored in a site-packages directory for each virtual environment. This isolation prevents version conflicts and ensures that different projects can have different versions of the same package without interfering with each other.

Packages installed globally: Packages installed globally are placed in the system-wide site-packages directory. As a result of this lack of isolation, different projects may require different versions of the same package, potentially resulting in compatibility issues.

Cleanliness:

Packages installed within a virtual environment: Virtual environments prevent project-specific dependencies from polluting the global Python installation. As a result, Python's environment is more stable and maintainable.

Packages installed globally: Global installation may result in a cluttered site-packages directory, especially if different projects have conflicting dependencies. When using packages in different projects, this can make it difficult to manage packages.

Project portability:

Packages installed within a virtual environment: As all project dependencies are contained within the virtual environment, virtual environments enhance project portability. This makes it easy to move the project between different systems and ensures consistency in behavior.

Packages installed globally: Using global packages makes project portability more challenging, since you must ensure that the required packages are available across all systems.