Anaconda vs. miniconda

Per the original docs:

Choose Anaconda if you:

• Are new to conda or Python
• Like the convenience of having Python and over 1500 scientific packages automatically installed at once
• Have the time and disk space (a few minutes and 3 GB), and/or
• Don’t want to install each of the packages you want to use individually.

Choose Miniconda if you:

• Do not mind installing each of the packages you want to use individually.
• Do not have time or disk space to install over 1500 packages at once, and/or
• Just want fast access to Python and the conda commands, and wish to sort out the other programs later.

I use Miniconda myself. Anaconda is bloated. Many of the packages are never used and could still be easily installed if and when needed.

Note that Conda is the package manager (e.g. conda list displays all installed packages in the environment), whereas Anaconda and Miniconda are distributions. A software distribution is a collection of packages, pre-built and pre-configured, that can be installed and used on a system. A package manager is a tool that automates the process of installing, updating, and removing packages.

Anaconda is a full distribution of the central software in the PyData ecosystem, and includes Python itself along with the binaries for several hundred third-party open-source projects. Miniconda is essentially an installer for an empty conda environment, containing only Conda, its dependencies, and Python. Source.

Once Conda is installed, you can then install whatever package you need from scratch along with any desired version of Python.

2-4.4.0.1 is the version number for your Anaconda installation package. Strangely, it is not listed in their Old Package Lists.

In April 2016, the Anaconda versioning jumped from 2.5 to 4.0 in order to avoid confusion with Python versions 2 & 3. Version 4.0 included the Anaconda Navigator.

Release notes for subsequent versions can be found here.

LICENSE NOTE: The company behind Anaconda updated their Terms of Service in 2020 to prohibit commercial usage for most uses. You are NOT permitted to use Anaconda or Miniconda in a business with more than 200 employees, unless you acquire licenses. Please review the current license terms here.

The difference is that miniconda is just shipping the repository management system. So when you install it there is just the management system without packages. Whereas with Anaconda, it is like a distribution with some built in packages.

Like with any Linux distribution, there are some releases which bundles lots of updates for the included packages. That is why there is a difference in version numbering. If you only decide to upgrade Anaconda, you are updating a whole system.

EDIT there are new options now for on the package management side. mamba can be used as a drop in replacement for conda. It has a faster solver and is a complete re-write in C++. The solver is actually experimentally available in conda with --experimental-solver=libmamba. Keywords to look for if you want to learn more: mamba, mambaforge, micromamba.

Miniconda gives you the Python interpreter itself, along with a command-line tool called conda which operates as a cross-platform package manager geared toward Python packages, similar in spirit to the apt or yum tools that Linux users might be familiar with.

Anaconda includes both Python and conda, and additionally bundles a suite of other pre-installed packages geared toward scientific computing. Because of the size of this bundle, expect the installation to consume several gigabytes of disk space.

Source: Jake VanderPlas's Python Data Science Handbook

The 2 in Anaconda2 means that the main version of Python will be 2.x rather than the 3.x installed in Anaconda3. The current release has Python 2.7.13.

The 4.4.0.1 is the version number of Anaconda. The current advertised version is 4.4.0 and I assume the .1 is a minor release or for other similar use. The Windows releases, which I use, just say 4.4.0 in the file name.

Others have now explained the difference between Anaconda and Miniconda, so I'll skip that.