Choosing Pandas, Polars, or PyArrow? Sometimes the File Format Matters Even More

Choosing Pandas, Polars, or PyArrow: Why CSV vs Parquet vs Apache Arrow Matters for Python Data Engineering

Introduction When developers discuss high-performance data processing in Python, the conversation usually centers around Pandas, Polars, or PyArrow. While selecting the right DataFrame library is important, my recent benchmark reminded me of a more fundamental truth: Performance problems often begin before your processing code runs. If your data is stored inefficiently, even the fastest DataFrame … Read more