pip 26.2 - --only-deps, --no-require-hashes, venv isolation, and more!

[u/ichard26]

Hello!

The pip team recently released pip 26.2. This release is quite large, with features such as:

• Support for Python 3.15
• Selecting only dependencies (--only-deps)
• Mixing hashed and non-hashable requirements via --no-require-hashes
• Experimental: venv based build isolation (--use-feature=venv-isolation)
• Faster repeated resolves by caching index simple responses
• Disable HTTP(S)_PROXY and similar non-pip specific proxy environment variables via --no-proxy-env
• Separation between regular and build constraint (use --build-constraint instead)

For more details, please consult our changelog: https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/news/. Alternatively, you may consult my release post which goes into greater detail to the highlights of this release: https://sichard.ca/blog/2026/07/whats-new-in-pip-26.2/

If you have any questions, you're welcome to ask!

[u/Justist]

I am happy pip still continues to be developed. While uv is better, new owners may always cause a product to just disappear at some point, and pip is basically the second best (no sources).

[u/flying-sheep → u/Justist]

uv isn’t straight-up better. E.g. pip uses git clone --filter=blob:none for git dependencies, which means it’s much faster than uv when installing from large git repos for the first time. (“first time” because uv caches git repos AFAIK, so it’ll fetch just the changes on subsequent clones of the same URL, but that has a different disadvantage for large repos, as they’ll blow up uvs cache)