Downloading and Installing PyPy

Using a packaged PyPy

Some Linux distributions provide a pypy package. Note that in order to install additional modules that require compilation, you may need to install additional packages such as pypy-dev. This will manifest as an error about “missing Python.h”. Distributions do not as of yet supply many pypy-ready packages, if you require additional modules we recommend creating a virtualenv and using pip.

Download a pre-built PyPy

The quickest way to start using PyPy is to download a prebuilt binary for your OS and architecture. You may be able to use either use the most recent release or one of our development nightly build. These builds depend on dynamically linked libraries that may not be available on your OS. See the section about Linux binaries for more info and alternatives that may work on your system.

Please note that the nightly builds are not guaranteed to be as stable as official releases, use them at your own risk.

Installing PyPy

PyPy is ready to be executed as soon as you unpack the tarball or the zip file, with no need to install it in any specific location:

$ tar xf pypy-x.y.z.tar.bz2
$ ./pypy-x.y.z/bin/pypy
Python 2.7.x (xxxxxxxxxxxx, Date, Time)
[PyPy x.y.z with GCC x.y.z] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
And now for something completely different: ``PyPy is an exciting technology
that lets you to write fast, portable, multi-platform interpreters with less
effort''
>>>>

If you want to make PyPy available system-wide, you can put a symlink to the pypy executable in /usr/local/bin. It is important to put a symlink and not move the binary there, else PyPy would not be able to find its library.

Installing more modules

If you want to install 3rd party libraries, the most convenient way is to install pip using ensurepip (unless you want to install virtualenv as explained below; then you can directly use pip inside virtualenvs):

$ ./pypy-xxx/bin/pypy -m ensurepip
$ ./pypy-xxx/bin/pypy -mpip install -U pip wheel # to upgrade to the latest versions
$ ./pypy-xxx/bin/pypy -mpip install pygments  # for example

If you wish to be able to use pip directly from the command line, you must use the --default-pip argument when calling ensurepip. Third party libraries will be installed in pypy-xxx/site-packages. As with CPython, scripts on linux and macOS will be in pypy-xxx/bin, and on windows they will be in pypy-xxx/Scripts

Installing using virtualenv

It is often convenient to run pypy inside a virtualenv. To do this you need a version of virtualenv – 1.6.1 or greater. You can then install PyPy both from a precompiled tarball or from a mercurial checkout after translation:

# from a tarball
$ virtualenv -p /opt/pypy-xxx/bin/pypy my-pypy-env

# from the mercurial checkout
$ virtualenv -p /path/to/pypy/pypy/translator/goal/pypy-c my-pypy-env

# in any case activate it
$ source my-pypy-env/bin/activate

Note that my-pypy-env/bin/python is now a symlink to my-pypy-env/bin/pypy so you should be able to run pypy simply by typing:

$ python

You should still upgrade pip and wheel to the latest versions via:

$ my-pypy-env/bin/pypy -mpip install -U pip wheel

Building PyPy yourself

If you’re interested in getting more involved, or doing something different with PyPy, consult the build instructions.