Spyder Alternatives for Python Data Science

Spyder, the Scientific Python Development Environment, is still free, MIT-licensed and actively released. PyPI lists 6.1.8 from October 23, 2026, after 6.1.7 in August, and a 6.2.0 alpha came out on July 10, 2026. Standalone installers cover Windows 10+, Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, and Linux, and Anaconda still ships it by default. Its draw has not changed: an editor, an IPython console, a variable explorer and a plots pane on one screen, like MATLAB or RStudio.

People leave for other reasons. Some want notebooks as the main format. Some need remote development, Git tools or a large extension library. Others teach beginners and want something simpler. The seven picks below start with the editors that copy Spyder's layout most closely and move toward notebook tools. If you end up on VS Code and want to compare forks, our VS Code alternatives page covers them.

Prices below are as of November 6, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.

Quick comparison

Positron

Positron feels like Spyder rebuilt on the VS Code base. Posit, the company behind RStudio, designed it for data science: a live Python or R console, a Variables view, a Plots pane and a Data Explorer that opens any data frame as a filterable grid. If your day is load data, inspect it, plot, repeat, the workflow carries over almost unchanged.

It adds what Spyder lacks. Python and R run side by side, VS Code-compatible extensions install from .vsix files, and Remote SSH connects to Linux servers, per the Positron FAQ. The homepage lists build 2026.11.0 and an optional AI helper, Posit Assistant, that can see your live session.

Best for: Spyder users who want the same console-and-variables layout plus R, remote servers and extensions.

Pricing:

• Desktop app: free
• Positron Server for academic JupyterHub: free education licence
• Enterprise options such as Workbench: contact sales

Watch out for:

• The licence is the Elastic License 2.0, which Posit calls source-available. It is not an OSI open source licence like Spyder's MIT.
• It is younger than Spyder. Builds are numbered by year and month, and recent release notes keep reworking panes and settings, so expect some churn.

Official site: Positron.

Visual Studio Code

VS Code with Microsoft's Python and Jupyter extensions covers most of what Spyder does. You can run a script cell by cell with # %% markers, inspect variables in the Jupyter variables view, open data frames in a viewer and debug with breakpoints. The same editor then handles your web, shell and config files.

It is free for private and commercial use, and version 1.145 is the update from early November 2026. New versions now arrive every week.

Best for: Developers who want one editor for data science and the rest of their code.

Pricing:

• Free for private and commercial use

Watch out for:

• Memory use can be high. A GitHub issue reports about 2.2 to 2.5 GB with a small Python project and extensions disabled.
• The data science features live in extensions, so setup takes longer than opening Spyder from Anaconda.

Official site: Visual Studio Code.

PyCharm

PyCharm is now one product with a free core and a paid Pro tier. The free part covers the editor, debugger, testing, Git, a terminal and basic Jupyter support, and it may be used commercially. Pro adds full Jupyter notebooks with a dedicated debugger and interactive tables, remote development over SSH, WSL or Docker, and database tools for more than 40 databases.

JetBrains also folded its data science IDE into PyCharm. DataSpell stopped being sold on May 28, 2026, and eligible subscriptions converted to PyCharm Pro from September 1, 2026, per ComponentSource's summary of the change.

Best for: Teams whose analysis code is turning into a package or app that needs refactoring and tests.

Pricing:

• Free core: no charge, commercial use allowed
• Pro: subscription; 30-day free trial with each major release
• Pro is free for students and educators
• Organisations: $293.02 per user a year, via reseller ComponentSource

Watch out for:

• Full notebook features, remote interpreters and database tools need Pro.
• It is heavier to start and index than Spyder, which matters on older laptops.

Official site: PyCharm.

JupyterLab

Spyder is script-first; JupyterLab is notebook-first. Code, output, charts and notes sit together in .ipynb files that colleagues can open on GitHub or in any Jupyter tool. JupyterLab adds a file browser, terminals, a debugger and a variable inspector around the notebooks, all in the browser.

Version 4.6.6 was uploaded to PyPI on November 6, 2026, under a BSD 3-Clause licence, and needs Python 3.10 or newer. It installs with pip or conda, and Spyder users with Anaconda already have it.

Best for: Analysts who share results as notebooks or teach with them.

Pricing:

• Free and open source (BSD 3-Clause)

Watch out for:

• Cells can run in any order, so a notebook can hold results that no longer match its code.
• Editing long modules is clumsier than in Spyder's editor; most people keep a separate IDE for library code.

Official site: JupyterLab.

marimo

marimo fixes the notebook problem that keeps many Spyder users away from Jupyter. It is reactive: when you change a cell, every cell that depends on it reruns, so what you see always matches the code. Notebooks are stored as plain Python, which diffs cleanly in Git, and the same file can run as a script or an app.

PyPI lists version 0.25.2 from October 19, 2026, under Apache 2.0, with Python 3.10 or newer required. The pre-1.0 version number signals that the API can still change.

Best for: Researchers who want notebooks that stay reproducible and work in Git.

Pricing:

• Free and open source (Apache 2.0)

Watch out for:

• Reactivity forbids redefining the same variable in two cells, which breaks habits from Spyder's # %% cells.
• Releases come often, and a 0.x version can change behaviour between updates.

Official site: marimo.

Thonny

For a classroom, Spyder can show too much at once. Thonny shows less. It is a beginner IDE with a Variables view and a debugger that steps through a program expression by expression, so students see how each value is computed. Aivar Annamaa started it at the University of Tartu, and Cybernetica AS has partly supported it since 2018.

Version 5.0.1 reached PyPI on October 26, 2026, under the MIT licence. The official installers bundle Python 3.14 and cover Windows on Intel and Arm, Intel and Apple Silicon Macs, and Linux through Flatpak, Snap or distro packages.

Best for: Teachers and first-year students learning Python from scratch.

Pricing:

• Free and open source (MIT)

Watch out for:

• There is no data frame viewer or plots pane, so it is not a replacement for scientific work.
• Projects outgrow it quickly once students need packages, Git or multiple files.

Official site: Thonny.

VSCodium

VSCodium is VS Code built from Microsoft's open source repository and released under MIT with telemetry turned off. For Spyder users who chose it partly because it is community software, that matters. The Python and Jupyter extensions install from the Open VSX Registry, and the editor works the same way as VS Code.

The newest build is 1.143.17232 from October 28, 2026, based on VS Code 1.143.1, for Windows, macOS and Linux on x64 and ARM64.

Best for: Open source purists who want VS Code's Python tooling without Microsoft's build.

Pricing:

• Free, open source (MIT-licensed binaries)

Watch out for:

• Some Microsoft extensions are licensed for the official build only, including the Remote Development pack, per the VSCodium extensions doc.
• Builds trail Microsoft's by a version or two.

Official site: VSCodium. Our listing: VSCodium.

How to choose

When to stay with Spyder

Keep Spyder if you work in scripts, like a MATLAB-style screen with the variable explorer always visible, and install Python through Anaconda, which includes it. It is MIT-licensed, light compared with VS Code or PyCharm, and still released every month or two, per its GitHub releases.

Frequently asked questions