macos - What is the difference between installing packages with Python 3 and pip3 in terminal?

Question

I have two versions of Python on my Mac: 2.7 and 3.8.

When installing packages, I use pip3 instead of pip in order for the packages so install for the correct Python version.

However, I noticed that I can also install with Python3 in the terminal:

 python3 -m pip install ...

Is there a difference between the two? I noticed they showed different pip versions which was a bit strange.

Answer 1

https://docs.python.org/3/using/cmdline.html#cmdoption-m

Using -m is another way of executing an installed module. More specifically, it would be a way of using modules installed for different python versions.

python2 -m pip install ...
python3 -m pip install ...

Run flask module installed on python2 or python3
python2 -m flask
python3 -m flask

For your case you probably want to install a module on python 3.8 as 2.7 is the default installation that comes with the OS and not somewhere you'd want to install modules for development.