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This is not a question of whether I should choose Anaconda or Miniconda. I want both.

I want the full featured Anaconda (with Spyder) installed for my script development, but then I want to minimize (without Spyder) a frozen version of my application. I'm thinking of also installing Miniconda and installing the bare minimum number of packages that are needed to male my application work (primarily OpenCV, Numpy, and PyQT) and then using cx_Freeze to create a distribution package (using Inno Setup for building a Windows installation package).

Is it possible to have both Anaconda and Miniconda on my Windows machine without having conflicts between the two? If so, are there any tricks I need to know?

slalomchip
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  • Possible duplicate of [Anaconda vs miniconda](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45421163/anaconda-vs-miniconda) – darthbith Jul 30 '18 at 01:19
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    It is not recommended to do this (whether it is possible, I'm not sure). The solution is to use conda environments. Once you have installed either Miniconda or Anaconda, simply create a new environment and only install the "bare necessities" for your program. – darthbith Jul 30 '18 at 01:19
  • I thought conda environments were for hosting different versions of Python, such as 3.5 and 3.6. Can an Anaconda environment be used to host Miniconda? – slalomchip Jul 30 '18 at 01:50
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    Sure, why not? All Miniconda is is a Python + conda, whereas Anaconda is Python + conda + several hundred packages. Basically, Miniconda is Anaconda minus all of the packages. So just creating a new environment with Python as the only package gets you the equivalent of Miniconda. – darthbith Jul 30 '18 at 11:44
  • Conda environments are not necessarily tied to python, you can use conda for example, to create different environments for each of your nodejs apps. – Nehal J Wani Aug 01 '18 at 19:05
  • I heard of a use-case for this where you want to use conda envs to develop Flask web apps and the full anaconda is overkill. – mLstudent33 Jun 07 '20 at 18:46
  • It's been close to 4 years since this question was asked. I would appreciate your experience @slalomchip if you decided to install both or better yet if you still use that setup currently. – Mark Jul 27 '22 at 05:12
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    I don't believe I tried both on the same machine. The second @darthbith response should provide you with what you are looking for - if you want both, install Anaconda and then create a new environment, which is the same as Miniconda. I was really new to Python at the time I asked the question and had not used environments before. Personally, I'd suggest installing Miniconda and add the packages you need rather than boating your system with a bunch of packages you'll never use. – slalomchip Jul 27 '22 at 19:45
  • Better yet, install Mambaforge and take advantage of the much faster Mamba solver with the much larger conda-forge package channel! – darthbith Aug 25 '22 at 01:48
  • Also, @slalomchip, in retrospect my comments are quite patronizing... I just want to apologize for the tone in them. This stuff is way more complicated than it should be, and I need to remember that... :-) – darthbith Aug 25 '22 at 01:51
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    @dartbith - I liked your comments that Miniconda is basically Anaconda without all the packages. I was new to Python and Anaconda when I asked the question and didn't know much about environments. I still use Anaconda at work, but I abandoned it at home because of issues with multiprocessing. I found it was easier to fall back to the basic Python rather than getting multiprocessing working efficiently in a conda environment. I'll look into Mamba. – slalomchip Sep 12 '22 at 22:52

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