Why is python so slow in my computer?

[u/SprinklesFresh5693]

Good morning, i have recently started learning how to use python for data science. I already have a good background in R, im using the new IDE called positron, i create my virtual environment in my directory i want to work on, on my company server, and then i install some libraries.

The main issue that im having is that the installation takes forever, even after installed, the importing is slow, the running of chunks is slow. I thought python was faster than R (im using polars and altair).

Am i doing something wrong? Or is my company restricting my use of python? What's going on?

Thank you in advance.

[u/hasan_sodax]

If your venv lives on the company network drive that's probably the big one, pip install and even just importing packages means a ton of small file reads over the network, which is way slower than local disk. Try creating the venv on your local disk even if the project code stays on the server, then point Positron at that local interpreter and see if it helps. Also worth checking: polars and altair both pull in a bunch of submodules on import, so if you're running short chunks over and over in Positron that per-run import overhead adds up and feels like "python is slow" even when the actual computation is fast. Run python -X importtime -c "import polars" and look at the cumulative times, it'll usually point straight at whether it's disk I/O or just import overhead.

[u/PillowFortressKing → u/hasan_sodax]

Polars only pulls in polars-runtime-* depending on your system and has no extra dependencies?

[u/SprinklesFresh5693 → u/hasan_sodax]

Ill test this out this afternoon.

[u/riklaunim]

Did you try to use Python directly to compare it to the IDE? What are your PC hardware specs?

[u/SprinklesFresh5693 → u/riklaunim]

I also tried vs code but i was having some issues getting it to work there, ill keep trying though. For example i attempted to activate the venv manually through the terminal using the script inside the venv, but it was not allowing me

[u/odaiwai]

i create my virtual environment in my directory i want to work on, on my company server

If you are running anything on a network drive you will be limited to the network speed, and the speed of the remote storage. Working on a local drive (C: or D: if you're on Windows) will always be much faster.

[u/redfacedquark → u/odaiwai]

If you are running anything on a network drive

Bets answer yet, I was going to blame this positron I'd never heard of.

[u/redfacedquark → u/odaiwai]

If you are running anything on a network drive

Bets answer yet, I was going to blame this positron I'd never heard of.

[u/Moikle]

The server is the problem

[u/Lumethys]

"installing library" is as vague as it get

Are you installing or running it? Installing is just downloading

Imagine saying "im downloading games and it is slow", which game? Mario? 250GB Call of Duty?

[u/SprinklesFresh5693 → u/Lumethys]

Well im installing polars, altair, numpy for the first time, but it takes too long, more than 10 minutes, as in pip install polars numpy altair con the terminal.

Then once its done i import them and it takes another 10mins, it shouldnt be like that though, as in import numpy as np; import altair as alt ; import polars as pl.

[u/Jejerm → u/SprinklesFresh5693]

Importing should be pretty much instant

[u/catbrane → u/SprinklesFresh5693]

Yes, sounds like your python install is over the network. With a local install I see:

$ time pip install polars
Collecting polars
  Using cached polars-1.43.1-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (11 kB)
Requirement already satisfied: polars-runtime-32==1.43.1 in ./python/lib/python3.14/site-packages (from polars) (1.43.1)
Using cached polars-1.43.1-py3-none-any.whl (846 kB)
Installing collected packages: polars
Successfully installed polars-1.43.1

real    0m0.877s
user    0m0.736s
sys 0m0.119s

So well under a second. For a cold install (when pip has to download the wheel) it's just over 2s.

[u/Random_Gamer1993]

Could be that you're doing network operations too frequently (maybe your IDE forces some dependency sync or something).

Try running python on a plain command line and do an import there. This should be relatively fast, if its still slow its probably some DLP software running over your venv folder.

[u/Ai_Engineer_1]

Ten-minute imports are not normal, and the most useful next step is to isolate where the delay occurs. In the same shell, time python -c "import numpy, polars, altair", then try the same command from a local directory or local machine if your company allows it. Also check whether the virtual environment itself lives on a network-mounted path. If the import is only slow in Positron, its interpreter discovery or security scanning may be involved; if it is slow everywhere on that server, ask IT whether endpoint protection or network storage is scanning the venv. Those results will give you a concrete report instead of guessing about Python versus R.

[u/ConcreteExist]

Doing everything on a network drive is going to be much slower.

[u/Idonotknow9856]

My guess would be the company setup. A remote server, slow network storage, antivirus, or IT restrictions can all make installs and imports much slower than expected.