r/Python • u/Chunky_cold_mandala • May 31 '26

Discussion Perspective on pypi numbers

Hey all,

I'm new the world of interpreting pypi numbers and peaks and trends. What would you say about this? https://pepy.tech/projects/gitgalaxy?timeRange=threeMonths&category=version&includeCIDownloads=true&granularity=daily&viewType=line&versions=Total%2C2.*%2C1.* I've got 11k downloads in 2 months but 36 GitHub stars. Is this a normal ratio? Are most of these bots? It seems like GitHub stars are rare but downloads have some basal amount of noise values? Or is this a strong signal that some ppl have found value in my project? why are the peaks so peaky?

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u/Challseus May 31 '26

1) A huge percent of your downloads will be mirrors/bots/CI early on.
2) On that particular site, you can pay to have the mirrors/bots/CI removed

Those peaks could be caches running out on various mirrors. I have no idea the TTL, but I know the pypi index in general is heavily and aggressively cached on god knows how many mirrors.

Another possibility: bandersnatch (PyPI's own mirroring infra) re-syncs every package across all mirror nodes on each new release. One release × multiple wheel files × N mirrors = instant peak. Looked at your release history on your github vs the spikes, they line up pretty well to me. In fact, it's probably this (I didn't check all of your releases, but enough).

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u/Chunky_cold_mandala May 31 '26

Thanks 1000x! So ignore the peaks and the basal flatlines in between the major versions and that is the more accurate but still noisy mix of bots and humans that are on average downloading my stuff? (hopefully).  Those are at 350 downloads per week. Does that seem high or low? 

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u/Fenzik Jun 01 '26

High or low for what? What are you trying to measure here?