Installation

The best way to install Polars is to do so inside a Python virtual environment. For this course, we will use a JupyterHub running on a training cluster which is already setup with Polars, so this information is for your future reference only.

Personal computer

Traditional approach

python -m venv ~/env                  # Create virtual env
source ~/env/bin/activate             # Activate virtual env
pip install --upgrade pip             # Update pip
pip install polars                    # Install Polars

With uv

A newer and much faster approach to install Python packages now is to use uv:

uv init --bare                        # Initiate project
uv add polars                         # Install Polars

Alliance clusters

First, load the Python module of your choice.

Example:

module load python/3.14.2

Wheels are available for Polars (always prefer wheels when possible).

python -m venv ~/env                  # Create virtual env
source ~/env/bin/activate             # Activate virtual env
pip install --upgrade pip --no-index  # Update pip from wheel
pip install polars --no-index         # Install Polars from wheel

Note that the Alliance clusters do not support uv.