Miniforge: The minimal, open solution for institutional Python environments

In 2022, I summarized the practical differences between Miniconda and Miniforgeꜛ for scientific Python environments. At that time, both offered minimal “conda” installations, but with slightly different defaults and governance. In the wake of major licensing and infrastructure changes by Anaconda, Inc., as well as rapid development in the conda-forgeꜛ ecosystem, the situation in 2025 has shifted fundamentally.

The conda-forge logo (a stylized anvil). conda-forge is a community-driven collection of recipes for building conda packages. It provides a wide range of packages that are not available in the default Anaconda repository, making it a valuable resource for users who need specific software or libraries. Source: conda-forge.orgꜛ (modified).

Recent changes in Anaconda licensing and institutional responses

Over the past years, Anaconda, Inc.ꜛ has introducedꜛ new commercial licensing terms for its Anaconda and Miniconda installers. These changes have directly impactedꜛ the academic and research landscape. In particular, the new licensing model restricts free institutional use, introduces potential legal risks, and includes increased telemetry and tracking. As a result, many universities and research institutes have formally blocked the use of Anaconda and Miniconda, or strongly discourage their installation on institutional systems. The packages available through the traditional Anaconda defaults channel are not affected, but the installation and management infrastructure provided by Anaconda, Inc. is now largely incompatible with the requirements of academic environments committed to open and unrestricted software.

Miniforge and the inclusion of Mamba

In response to these developments, the conda-forgeꜛ community has continued to develop and maintain Miniforgeꜛ as the minimal, fully open installer for Python and scientific computing environments. Miniforge is distributed under a permissive BSD/MIT license and is entirely independent of Anaconda, Inc. Crucially, Miniforge now includes both the classic conda package manager and the high-performance mamba package manager by default. There is no longer any need to install Mambaforge; this project has been formally discontinued, and its functionality is now fully incorporated into Miniforge.

The conda and mamba commands are fully interoperable. Both manage environments and packages in exactly the same way, with mamba typically offering much higher performance, especially for solving complex dependencies. Users can use either conda or mamba in the command line, and both have access to all packages published on conda-forgeꜛ. For the vast majority of use cases in science and data analysis, conda-forge offers the same package breadth and versions as were available to users of Anaconda/Miniconda, but with an open, community-based governance model.

Migration: How to switch to Miniforge

Uninstall any existing Anaconda or Miniconda installations to avoid path conflicts. Download the Miniforge installer for your operating system and architecture. Installation follows the same steps as previous conda-based environments and both conda and mamba will be available. Users can create and manage environments as before, simply using mamba in place of conda if desired:

mamba create -n myenv python=3.12 numpy matplotlib -y
mamba activate myenv

Further details and current installation instructions are always available in the Miniforge repositoryꜛ.

Conclusion

Miniforge is now the standard, minimal, and license-compliant solution for Python and conda-based scientific environments in academic and research institutions. All functionality previously available through Miniconda or the now-deprecated Mambaforge is provided by Miniforge, without the risk of commercial license violations or loss of performance. The open, community-driven conda-forgeꜛ ecosystem ensures ongoing access to the latest packages, reliability, and transparency. For the latest information and updates, consult the Miniforge GitHub repository.