Spyder (software)

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IDE for scientific programming in Python

title: "Spyder (software)" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["free-integrated-development-environments", "free-integrated-development-environments-for-python", "free-mathematics-software", "free-science-software", "python-(programming-language)-development-tools", "software-programmed-in-python", "software-using-the-mit-license"] description: "IDE for scientific programming in Python" topic_path: "science/mathematics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyder_(software)" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary IDE for scientific programming in Python ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]

Field	Value
name	Spyder
logo
logo alt	Spyder IDE logo and wordmark
screenshot	Spyder-windows-screenshot.png
caption	Screenshot of Spyder on Windows
author	Pierre Raybaut
developer	Spyder project contributors
released
latest release version
latest release date
programming language	Python
operating system	Cross-platform
platform	Qt, Windows, macOS, Linux
genre	Integrated development environment
license	MIT
::

Spyder is an open-source cross-platform integrated development environment (IDE) for scientific programming in the Python language. Spyder integrates with a number of prominent packages in the scientific Python stack, as well as other open-source software. Created by Pierre Raybaut and released in 2009 under the MIT license, since 2012 Spyder has been maintained and continuously improved by Python developers and the community.

Spyder is extensible with first-party and third-party plugins, and includes support for interactive tools for data inspection and embeds Python-specific code quality assurance and introspection instruments, such as Pyflakes, Pylint and Rope. Spyder uses Qt for its GUI and is designed to use either of the PyQt or PySide Python bindings. QtPy, a thin abstraction layer developed by the Spyder project and later adopted by multiple other packages, provides the flexibility to use either backend.

History

Initially created and developed by Pierre Raybaut, it was published on October 18, 2009 under the MIT license.

Since 2012 Spyder has been maintained and continuously improved by a team of scientific Python developers and the community. As of 2024, the Spyder website lists the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and NumFOCUS as their two major sponsors, also noting donations received from users through Open Collective. Carlos Cordoba was listed as the lead maintainer of the software, with Daniel Althiz as co-maintainer.

Software

It is an open-source cross-platform integrated development environment (IDE) for scientific programming in the Python language. Spyder integrates with a number of prominent packages in the scientific Python stack, including NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib, pandas, IPython, SymPy and Cython, as well as other open-source software.

Spyder is extensible with first-party and third-party plugins, includes support for interactive tools for data inspection and embeds Python-specific code quality assurance and introspection instruments, such as Pyflakes, Pylint and Rope. It is available cross-platform through Anaconda, on Windows, on macOS through MacPorts, and on major Linux distributions such as Arch Linux, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo Linux, openSUSE and Ubuntu.

Spyder uses Qt for its GUI and is designed to use either of the PyQt or PySide Python bindings. QtPy, a thin abstraction layer developed by the Spyder project and later adopted by multiple other packages, provides the flexibility to use either backend.

Features

Features include:

An editor with syntax highlighting, introspection, code completion
Support for multiple IPython consoles
The ability to explore and edit variables from a GUI
A Help pane able to retrieve and render rich text documentation on functions, classes and methods automatically or on-demand
A debugger linked to IPdb, for step-by-step execution
Static code analysis, powered by Pylint
A run-time Profiler, to benchmark code
Project support, allowing work on multiple development efforts simultaneously
A built-in file explorer, for interacting with the filesystem and managing projects
A "Find in Files" feature, allowing full regular expression search over a specified scope
An online help browser, allowing users to search and view Python and package documentation inside the IDE
A history log, recording every user command entered in each console
An internal console, allowing for introspection and control over Spyder's own operation

Plugins

Available plugins include:

Spyder-Unittest, which integrates the popular unit testing frameworks Pytest, Unittest and Nose with Spyder
Spyder-Notebook, allowing the viewing and editing of Jupyter Notebooks within the IDE
- Download Spyder Notebook
- Using conda: conda install spyder-notebook -c spyder-ide
- Using pip: pip install spyder-notebook
Spyder-Reports, enabling use of literate programming techniques in Python
Spyder-Terminal, adding the ability to open, control and manage cross-platform system shells within Spyder
- Download Spyder Terminal
- Using conda: conda install spyder-terminal -c spyder-ide
- Using pip: pip install spyder-terminal
Spyder-Vim, containing commands and shortcuts emulating the Vim text editor
Spyder-AutoPEP8, which can automatically conform code to the standard PEP 8 code style
Spyder-Line-Profiler and Spyder-Memory-Profiler, extending the built-in profiling functionality to include testing an individual line, and measuring memory usage

References

"spyder-ide/spyder at v1.0.0". [[GitHub]].
(18 October 2009). "(Python)(ANN) Spyder v1.0.0 released".
"Migrating from MATLAB to Python". et.byu.edu.
"Spyder review". review.techworld.com.
"Spyder license".
"SpyderPlugins – spyderlib – Plugin development – Spyder is the Scientific PYthon Development EnviRonment".
"Pylint extension – Spyder 2.2 documentation". packages.python.org.
"Reviews for spyder". apps.ubuntu.com.
"Seznámení s Python IDE Spyder". fedora.cz.
(21 February 2015). "Spyder runtime dependencies". github.com.
(23 October 2015). "QtPy: Abstraction layer for PySide/PyQt4/PyQt5". github.com.
(2024). "About". spyder-ide.org.
(2024). "Spyder website main page". spyder-ide.org.
"Spyder Documentation – Features Overview". Spyder Project.
"Spyder Plugins List". Spyder Project.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::