MinGW or Cygwin for Python development on Windows?
<p>I am using vanilla Python 3.x on Windows, using Pycharm as IDE.</p>

<p>Although this is working; I need to install different packages and modules; and I did notice that windows has no pip, from what I can tell.</p>

<p>I am familiar with Python on Linux, and most of the time it is a matter of use pip to install new packages and modules for Python; but on windows it seems more daunting and complex.</p>

<p>I was told to use either MinGW or Cygwin, so I can be in a full unix environment, using terminal commands that I am used to, and the unix console; althought I do not get the difference, related to python.</p>

<p>The code that I write, will be eventually deployed on Linux, OSX and Windows; would matter if I use CygWin or MinGW? If this is too much of a trouble, it is probably easier to just install Ubuntu as VM and work there; but I am hoping that I can do the same on a standard W10 machine.</p>

<p>I'd comment with this if I had the rep to do so, as it fails to stay within the scope of your question. I'm guessing you've heard of <a href="https://www.continuum.io/downloads" rel="nofollow">Anaconda</a> but using <code>conda</code> and many commands associated with it, you can manage packages and virtual environments, etc. If the problem is Python on Windows (as opposed to Python in a Linux environment on Windows), I recommend checking it out, if you haven't heard of it already!</p>

python cygwin mingw