Cartopy vs folium
A data-driven comparison of two Python map & geospatial visualization libraries: popularity, development activity, licensing and installation. Updated .
Key differences
- folium has 4.6× as many GitHub stars as Cartopy (7.4K vs 1.6K).
- Cartopy had more development activity over the last 12 months: 226 commits vs 198.
- folium is downloaded 2.3× as often on PyPI (607K vs 260.3K per week).
- Cartopy is licensed under BSD-3-Clause; folium under MIT.
By the numbers
- Cartopy
- folium
Show data as a table
| Metric | Cartopy | folium |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | 1,625 | 7,414 |
| PyPI downloads / week | 260,294 | 606,950 |
| Commits, last 12 months | 226 | 198 |
| Contributors | 127 | 190 |
| Forks | 406 | 2,267 |
Development activity
Commits per month to each default branch, last 12 complete months.
- Cartopy
- folium
Show data as a table
| Month | Cartopy | folium |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 2025 | 8 | 2 |
| Dec 2025 | 15 | 16 |
| Jan 2026 | 10 | 3 |
| Feb 2026 | 7 | 41 |
| Mar 2026 | 14 | 4 |
| Apr 2026 | 22 | 8 |
| May 2026 | 3 | 7 |
| Jun 2026 | 8 | 11 |
| Jul 2026 | 52 | 28 |
| Aug 2026 | 17 | 24 |
| Sep 2026 | 43 | 15 |
| Oct 2026 | 27 | 39 |
Side by side
| Attribute | Cartopy | folium |
|---|---|---|
| Description | Cartographic projections and geospatial data plotting with matplotlib. | Builds interactive Leaflet.js maps from Python data. |
| Category | Python map & geospatial visualization libraries | Python map & geospatial visualization libraries |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Language | Python | Python |
| Status | Active | Active |
| Latest release | v0.26.0 () | v0.20.0 () |
| Last commit | ||
| Repository created | ||
| Open issues | 281 | 58 |
| Install | pip install Cartopy | pip install folium |
Which should you choose?
Popularity and activity are only part of the story. Consider which ecosystem you work in, the chart types and interactions you need, how much data you render, and whether the license fits your project. Both tool pages list alternatives if neither is quite right.