What are the differences between Conda and Anaconda?

Question

Post-question update:

See Introduction to Conda for more details.

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The problem:

I first installed Anaconda

Answer 1

Brief

conda is both a command line tool, and a python package.

Miniconda installer = Python + conda

Anaconda installer = Python + conda + meta package anaconda

meta Python pkg anaconda = about 160 other Python packages for daily use in data science

Anaconda installer = Miniconda installer + conda install anaconda

Detail

conda is an environment manager and a package manager. It means the tool itself. conda makes it possible to

• install package with conda install flake8
• create an environment with any version of Python with conda create -n myenv python=3.6

conda is not a binary command, is a Python package. To make conda work, you have to create a Python environment and install package conda into it. This is where Anaconda installer and Miniconda installer comes in.

Installer Minoconda installs a Python and the package conda. Installer Anaconda not only does what Miniconda does, it also install a meta Python package named anaconda for you.

Meta packages, are packages that do NOT contain actual softwares and simply depend on other packages to be installed.

The actual 160+ python packages included in pkg anaconda are listed in info/recipe/meta.yaml in its source file.

package:
    name: anaconda
    version: '2019.07'
build:
    ignore_run_exports:
        - '*'
    number: '0'
    pin_depends: strict
    string: py36_0
requirements:
    build:
        - python 3.6.8 haf84260_0
    is_meta_pkg:
        - true
    run:
        - alabaster 0.7.12 py36_0
        - anaconda-client 1.7.2 py36_0
        - anaconda-project 0.8.3 py_0
        # ...
        - beautifulsoup4 4.7.1 py36_1
        # ...
        - curl 7.65.2 ha441bb4_0
        # ...
        - hdf5 1.10.4 hfa1e0ec_0
        # ...
        - ipykernel 5.1.1 py36h39e3cac_0
        - ipython 7.6.1 py36h39e3cac_0
        - ipython_genutils 0.2.0 py36h241746c_0
        - ipywidgets 7.5.0 py_0
        # ...
        - jupyter 1.0.0 py36_7
        - jupyter_client 5.3.1 py_0
        - jupyter_console 6.0.0 py36_0
        - jupyter_core 4.5.0 py_0
        - jupyterlab 1.0.2 py36hf63ae98_0
        - jupyterlab_server 1.0.0 py_0
        # ...
        - matplotlib 3.1.0 py36h54f8f79_0
        # ...
        - mkl 2019.4 233
        - mkl-service 2.0.2 py36h1de35cc_0
        - mkl_fft 1.0.12 py36h5e564d8_0
        - mkl_random 1.0.2 py36h27c97d8_0
        # ...
        - nltk 3.4.4 py36_0
        # ...
        - numpy 1.16.4 py36hacdab7b_0
        - numpy-base 1.16.4 py36h6575580_0
        - numpydoc 0.9.1 py_0
        # ...
        - pandas 0.24.2 py36h0a44026_0
        - pandoc 2.2.3.2 0
        # ...
        - pillow 6.1.0 py36hb68e598_0
        # ...
        - pyqt 5.9.2 py36h655552a_2
        # ...
        - qt 5.9.7 h468cd18_1
        - qtawesome 0.5.7 py36_1
        - qtconsole 4.5.1 py_0
        - qtpy 1.8.0 py_0
        # ...
        - requests 2.22.0 py36_0
        # ...
        - sphinx 2.1.2 py_0
        - sphinxcontrib 1.0 py36_1
        - sphinxcontrib-applehelp 1.0.1 py_0
        - sphinxcontrib-devhelp 1.0.1 py_0
        - sphinxcontrib-htmlhelp 1.0.2 py_0
        - sphinxcontrib-jsmath 1.0.1 py_0
        - sphinxcontrib-qthelp 1.0.2 py_0
        - sphinxcontrib-serializinghtml 1.1.3 py_0
        - sphinxcontrib-websupport 1.1.2 py_0
        - spyder 3.3.6 py36_0
        - spyder-kernels 0.5.1 py36_0
        # ...

Seeing from the above info, pre-installed packages from meta pkg anaconda are mainly for web scraping and data science. Like requests, beautifulsoup, numpy, nltk, etc.

If you have a Miniconda installed, conda install anaconda will make it same as an Anaconda installation, except that the installation folder names are different.

Answer 2

conda is the package manager. Anaconda is a set of about a hundred packages including conda, numpy, scipy, ipython notebook, and so on.

You installed Miniconda, which is a smaller alternative to Anaconda that is just conda and its dependencies, not those listed above.

Once you have Miniconda, you can easily install Anaconda into it with conda install anaconda.