Mambaforge is Miniforge (free minimal installer for conda specific to conda-forge) with Mamba in place of Conda.
Mambaforge is a minimal installer designed to provide users with a streamlined way to set up conda environments specifically optimized for conda-forge packages. Built on Mamba, an open-source alternative to Conda, Mambaforge offers faster and more efficient package management.
Key Features:
Lightning-fast package installation and environment creation thanks to Mamba's optimized performance.
Cross-platform compatibility, supporting Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Customizable environments that allow users to install only the packages they need.
Integration with winget for easy installation on Windows systems.
Audience & Benefit:
Ideal for data scientists, researchers, and developers who rely on conda-forge packages but want a lighter, faster alternative to traditional conda distributions. Mambaforge enables users to set up efficient development environments without unnecessary overhead, resulting in quicker workflows and better resource utilization.
README
Miniforge
This repository holds the minimal installers for Conda and Mamba specific to conda-forge, with the following features pre-configured:
The conda-forge channel is set as the default (and only) channel.
We put an emphasis on supporting various CPU architectures (x86_64, ppc64le, and aarch64 including Apple Silicon).
🚨 PyPy support is deprecated (Deprecated as of August 2024) 🚨
TL;DR: We are planning to remove PyPy from conda-forge feedstock recipes in a
few weeks (and thus to stop building new releases of packages for PyPy), unless
there is substantial enough interest to justify the continued maintenance
effort.
To help with this transition, the latest installers will:
The installer will refuse to proceed every two weeks in October
The installer will refuse to proceed every ten days in November
The installer will refuse to proceed every five days in December
The installer will refuse to proceed in 2025+
Miniforge-pypy3
Latest installers with PyPy 3.9 in the base environment are listed below.
However, the latest installers will cease to work and will stop being made available in 2025.
You should therefore pin to 24.7.0 if you require PyPy3.
Mambaforge is Miniforge (free minimal installer for conda specific to conda-forge) with Mamba in place of Conda. Use PyPy in place of standard Python interpreter
Miniconda is a free minimal installer for conda. It is a small bootstrap version of Anaconda that includes only conda, Python, the packages they both depend on, and a small number of other useful packages (like pip, zlib, and a few others). If you need more packages, use the conda install command to install from thousands of packages available by default in Anaconda’s public repo, or from other channels, like conda-forge or bioconda.
Mambaforge is Miniforge (free minimal installer for conda specific to conda-forge) with Mamba in place of Conda. Use PyPy in place of standard Python interpreter
Miniconda is a free minimal installer for conda. It is a small bootstrap version of Anaconda that includes only conda, Python, the packages they both depend on, and a small number of other useful packages (like pip, zlib, and a few others). If you need more packages, use the conda install command to install from thousands of packages available by default in Anaconda’s public repo, or from other channels, like conda-forge or bioconda.
Mambaforge is Miniforge (free minimal installer for conda specific to conda-forge) with Mamba in place of Conda. Use PyPy in place of standard Python interpreter
As of July 2024, Mambaforge is deprecated. We suggest users switch to
Miniforge3 immediately. These installers will be retired from new releases
after January 2025. To assist in the migration, we will be introducing rollowing
brownouts to the latest Mambaforge installer. Installers up to version 24.5.0-1
will not have any brownouts. 24.5.0-1 will include a warning message.
Installers 2024.5.0-2 and later will have the following brownout schedule:
The installer will refuse to proceed every two weeks in October
The installer will refuse to proceed every ten days in November
The installer will refuse to proceed every five days in December
The installer will refuse to proceed in 2025+
Previous information:
With the release of
Miniforge3-23.3.1-0, that incorporated the changes in
#277, the packages and
configuration of Mambaforge and Miniforge3 are now identical. The
only difference between the two is the name of the installer and, subsequently,
the default installation directory.
We recommend switching to Miniforge3 immediately. These installers will be
retired in January 2025. To assist in the migration to Miniforge3 for CI users, we've stopped
the latest Mambaforge (24.5+) installer from proceeding with following schedule
Every two weeks in October
Every ten days in November
Every five days in December
Never in 2025
You can still find the latest installers in the 24.9.2 release.
Usage
Miniforge provides installers for the commands conda and
mamba. Once the installer for your OS
and architecture has been executed, you should be able to use these commands in
a terminal.
conda/mamba usable in any terminals
However, with the default choices of the Windows installer, these commands are
only available in the "Miniforge Prompt". To be able to use these commands in
other terminals, one needs to initialize conda for your shell by running in
the Miniforge Prompt.
conda init
Note that one can also just add the C:\Users\myusername\miniforge3\condabin\ folder
to the path environment variable
manually
so conda and mamba may be used more conveniently from any command prompt with limited
chance of software conflicts.
The same situation arises on Unix if you use the non-interactive install.
Initialization can be done by calling conda with its full path, with something like
~/miniforge3/bin/conda init
Automatic activation of environments
By default, once conda has been initialized for your shell, the base environment is
activated so that the command python corresponds to the base Python provided by
Miniforge and conda install installs packages in the base environment. This can
be convenient for but it is cleaner to deactivate this automatic activation with
conda config --set auto_activate_base false
and use conda or mamba to create and activate other environments, with for example
(to create an environment called my_project)
conda create --name my_project jupyterlab numpy pandas
conda activate my_project
# Now you can start jupyter lab
jupyter lab
Finally, it is also possible to add to your shell configuration file
(typically ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc on Unix;
on Windows, edit with notepad $PROFILE) the activation command.
Requirements and installers
Latest installers with Python 3.12 (*) in the base environment:
OS
Architecture
Minimum Version
File
Linux
x86_64 (amd64)
glibc >= 2.17
Miniforge3-Linux-x86_64.sh
Linux
aarch64 (arm64) (**)
glibc >= 2.17
Miniforge3-Linux-aarch64.sh
Linux
ppc64le (POWER8/9)
glibc >= 2.17
Miniforge3-Linux-ppc64le.sh
macOS
x86_64
macOS >= 10.13
Miniforge3-MacOSX-x86_64.sh
macOS
arm64 (Apple Silicon) (***)
macOS >= 11.0
Miniforge3-MacOSX-arm64.sh
Windows
x86_64
Windows >= 7
Miniforge3-Windows-x86_64.exe
(*) The Python version is specific only to the base environment. Conda can create new environments with different Python versions and implementations.
(**) For Raspberry PI that include a 64 bit processor, you must also use
a 64-bit operating system such as
Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit
or
Ubuntu for Raspberry PI.
The versions listed as "System: 32-bit" are not compatible with the installers on this website.
(***) Apple silicon builds are experimental and haven't had testing like the other platforms.
Install
Windows
Download and execute the Windows installer.
Follow the prompts, taking note of the option to
"Create start menu shortcuts".
The most convenient and tested way to use the installed software
(such as commands conda and mamba)
is via the "Miniforge Prompt" installed to the start menu.
The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) lets developers use both Windows and Linux at the same time on a Windows machine.
WSL users should make sure they are in a Linux terminal window (not Powershell) and use the Linux installer appropriate for the computer's architecture as described in the instructions in the next section.
Unix-like platforms (macOS, Linux, & WSL)
From a terminal window, download the installer appropriate for your computer's architecture using curl or wget or your favorite program.
This will download the appropriate installer for the present architecture with
the filename Miniforge3.sh. Run the shell script with the command in batch
mode with the -b flag:
bash Miniforge3.sh -b -p "${HOME}/conda"
-p is prefix option. A directory will be created on "${HOME}/conda".
Then you should create the path to conda and activate conda.
Run this command:
source "${HOME}/conda/etc/profile.d/conda.sh"
# For mamba support also run the following command
source "${HOME}/conda/etc/profile.d/mamba.sh"
Finally, you can run the command to activate the base environment
conda activate
Uninstall
Unix-like platforms (macOS & Linux)
Uninstalling Miniforge means removing the files that were created during the installation process.
You will typically want to remove:
Any modifications to your shell rc files that were made by Miniforge:
# Use this first command to see what rc files will be updated
conda init --reverse --dry-run
# Use this next command to take action on the rc files listed above
conda init --reverse
# Temporarily IGNORE the shell message
# 'For changes to take effect, close and re-open your current shell.',
# and CLOSE THE SHELL ONLY AFTER the 3rd step below is completed.
Remove the folder and all subfolders where the base environment for Miniforge was installed:
CONDA_BASE_ENVIRONMENT=$(conda info --base)
echo The next command will delete all files in ${CONDA_BASE_ENVIRONMENT}
# Warning, the rm command below is irreversible!
# check the output of the echo command above
# To make sure you are deleting the correct directory
rm -rf ${CONDA_BASE_ENVIRONMENT}
Any global conda configuration files that are left behind.
echo ${HOME}/.condarc will be removed if it exists
rm -f "${HOME}/.condarc"
echo ${HOME}/.conda and underlying files will be removed if they exist.
rm -fr ${HOME}/.conda
Features
Automatic build of constructor.
Automatic upload of constructor results.
Automatic testing of constructor.
Integration with conda-forge's developer documentation.
Integration with conda-forge's official site.
Upstream to Anaconda ?
Testing
After construction on the CI, the installer is tested against a range of distribution that match the installer architecture ($ARCH). For example when architecture is aarch64, the constructed installer is tested against:
Be sure to delete the installation directory after build/test.sh has run. You will get installation errors if you run subsequent tests.
***** Run the installer *****
+ chmod +x build/Miniforge3-25.1.1-2-Linux-x86_64.sh
++ uname
+ [[ Linux == MINGW* ]]
+ [[ Miniforge3 == \M\i\n\i\f\o\r\g\e\3 ]]
+ sh build/Miniforge3-25.1.1-2-Linux-x86_64.sh -b -p /home/user001/miniforge
ERROR: File or directory already exists: '/home/user001/miniforge'
If you want to update an existing installation, use the -u option.
Without docker (Windows)
You must have Git Bash, or some other MINGW64 shell installed on Windows for this to run successfully.
What's the difference between Mambaforge and Miniforge?
After the release of Miniforge 23.3.1 in August 2023, Miniforge and Mambaforge
are essentially identical. The only difference is the name of the installer and
subsequently the default installation path.
Before that release, Miniforge only shipped conda, while Mambaforge added mamba
on top. Since Miniconda started shipping conda-libmamba-solver in July 2023,
Miniforge followed suit and started shipping it too in August. At that point,
since conda-libmamba-solver depends on libmambapy, the only difference between
Miniforge and Mambaforge was the presence of the mamba Python package. To
minimize surprises, we decided to add mamba to Miniforge too.
Should I choose one or another going forward at the risk of one of them getting deprecated?
As of June 2024, Mambaforge is deprecated and will be retired in January 2025.
We recommend users switch to Miniforge3 immediately. For more details, please
see the note above.
Release
To release a new version of Miniforge:
Make a new pre-release on GitHub with name $CONDA_VERSION-$BUILD_NUMBER
Wait until all artifacts are uploaded by CI
For each build, we upload 3 artifacts
One installer with the version name
One installer without the version name
The SHA256
At the time of writing, the is a sum of 72 artifacts, and with the two sources, we expect a grand total of 74 artifacts.
Mark the pre-release as a release
NOTE: using a pre-release is important to make sure the latest links work.
