cchardet
cChardet is high speed universal character encoding detector.
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes, if you need fast encoding detection and can accept the aging codebase. The package is stable with no known vulnerabilities, but the lack of updates since 2020-10-27 means it may not support newer Python versions or benefit from recent uchardet improvements. Use it for production workloads where encoding detection is a bottleneck and you are comfortable pinning to version 2.1.7; monitor the repository for future releases or evaluate alternatives if you require active maintenance.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Requires a C compiler and build tools at install time; prebuilt wheels are available for common platforms but not all architectures.
- Medium install friction due to compiled C extensions; prebuilt wheels are available for Python 3.6–3.9 on Windows, Linux, and macOS x86_64/i686, but the package is aging—last release was 2020-10-27 and no updates in over four years despite an active repository.
License · maintenance · safety
Mozilla Public License (copyleft) — Licensed under Mozilla Public License (copyleft), with dual licensing also under GPL and LGPL per classifiers. Copyleft terms require derivative works to be distributed under compatible terms; review your project's license compatibility before use.
last release 2020-10-27 (2117 days) · last repo commit 2025-05-21 · 409 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 8,435,620 downloads/mo, #1,623 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
import cchardet
with open('file.txt', 'rb') as f:
result = cchardet.detect(f.read())
print(result)- Whether the package remains compatible with Python 3.10+ despite no official release since 2020.
- Current performance relative to modern encoding detectors in production workloads.
- Whether the underlying uchardet library has received security or accuracy updates since the last cchardet release.
- Confidence score range and interpretation for detect() results.
What it is and what it does
cchardet is a high-speed character encoding detector that identifies the encoding of raw byte strings by analyzing statistical patterns. It wraps the C library uchardet and supports a wide range of international encodings including UTF-8, UTF-16, CJK variants (Big5, EUC-JP, Shift-JIS, GB18030, etc.), Cyrillic, Arabic, and many European single-byte encodings. The package provides a simple API: call detect() on a byte buffer to get back a dictionary with the detected encoding and language hint.
The main use case is preprocessing text data when the source encoding is unknown—common in web scraping, log parsing, and data import workflows. It has no runtime dependencies and installs via prebuilt wheels on most platforms. However, the project is aging: the last release was 2020-10-27, and while the repository remains active, there have been no new package versions for over four years. The copyleft license (Mozilla Public License) requires careful review if you plan to distribute derived works.
Use it for
- Detect encoding of downloaded web pages or API responses before parsing.
- Identify encoding of legacy log files or CSV imports with unknown character sets.
- Preprocess user-uploaded text files to normalize encoding before storage.
- Batch-process mixed-encoding document collections to extract text reliably.
- Auto-detect encoding in text processing pipelines to avoid manual charset specification.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes, if you need fast encoding detection and can accept the aging codebase.
The package is stable with no known vulnerabilities, but the lack of updates since 2020-10-27 means it may not support newer Python versions or benefit from recent uchardet improvements. Use it for production workloads where encoding detection is a bottleneck and you are comfortable pinning to version 2.1.7; monitor the repository for future releases or evaluate alternatives if you require active maintenance.
Install
cchardet on PyPI
Before you install
Medium install friction due to compiled C extensions; prebuilt wheels are available for Python 3.6–3.9 on Windows, Linux, and macOS x86_64/i686, but the package is aging—last release was 2020-10-27 and no updates in over four years despite an active repository.
Requires a C compiler and build tools at install time; prebuilt wheels are available for common platforms but not all architectures.
License in practice
Licensed under Mozilla Public License (copyleft), with dual licensing also under GPL and LGPL per classifiers. Copyleft terms require derivative works to be distributed under compatible terms; review your project's license compatibility before use.
Quickstart
import cchardet
with open('file.txt', 'rb') as f:
result = cchardet.detect(f.read())
print(result)Verify before relying
- Whether the package remains compatible with Python 3.10+ despite no official release since 2020.
- Current performance relative to modern encoding detectors in production workloads.
- Whether the underlying uchardet library has received security or accuracy updates since the last cchardet release.
- Confidence score range and interpretation for detect() results.
Package facts
| License | Mozilla Public License copyleft |
| Python support | Not specified |
| Install friction | Medium. Platform-specific wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | None |
| Maintenance | Aging 2,117 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 8,435,620 / month, #1,623 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | License :: OSI Approved :: GNU General Public License (GPL)License :: OSI Approved :: GNU Library or Lesser General Public License (LGPL)License :: OSI Approved :: Mozilla Public License 1.1 (MPL 1.1)Programming Language :: CythonProgramming Language :: PythonProgramming Language :: Python :: 3Programming Language :: Python :: 3.6Programming Language :: Python :: 3.7Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9Topic :: Software Development :: Libraries |
Evidence: cchardet-2.1.7-cp36-cp36m-macosx_10_9_x86_64.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp36-cp36m-manylinux1_i686.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp36-cp36m-manylinux1_x86_64.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp36-cp36m-manylinux2010_i686.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp36-cp36m-manylinux2010_x86_64.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp36-cp36m-win32.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp36-cp36m-win_amd64.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp37-cp37m-macosx_10_9_x86_64.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp37-cp37m-manylinux1_i686.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp37-cp37m-manylinux1_x86_64.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp37-cp37m-manylinux2010_i686.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp37-cp37m-manylinux2010_x86_64.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp37-cp37m-win32.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp37-cp37m-win_amd64.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp38-cp38-macosx_10_9_x86_64.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp38-cp38-manylinux1_i686.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp38-cp38-manylinux1_x86_64.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp38-cp38-manylinux2010_i686.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp38-cp38-manylinux2010_x86_64.whl; cchardet-2.1.7-cp38-cp38-win32.whl
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See also chardet · faust-cchardet · charset-normalizer · encutils · webencodings · isbinary · gibberish-detector · cwcwidth · mbstrdecoder · Unidecode