owslib
OGC Web Service utility library
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes. OWSLib is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, low install friction, and a permissive license. It fills a specific niche—standardized OGC web service access—that few other Python packages address comprehensively. Install it if you need to consume WMS, WFS, or other OGC services; be aware that WCS, WPS, and WMTS are still beta.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Requires Python 3.12 or later.
- Installation is straightforward with low friction; the package has four common runtime dependencies (lxml, python-dateutil, pyyaml, requests) that install cleanly.
- Maintenance is active with a recent release 71 days ago and regular commits.
License · maintenance · safety
BSD-3-Clause (permissive) — BSD-3-Clause is permissive, allowing commercial and private use with minimal restrictions beyond attribution and liability disclaimers.
last release 2026-06-04 (71 days) · last repo commit 2026-06-16 · 428 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 332,451 downloads/mo, #7,507 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install OWSLib
from owslib.wms import WebMapService
wms = WebMapService('http://wms.jpl.nasa.gov/wms.cgi', version='1.1.1')
print(wms.identification.title)- Current stability and production-readiness of WCS, WPS, and WMTS implementations (marked as beta in description).
- Performance characteristics when querying large or complex OGC service catalogs.
What it is and what it does
OWSLib is a client library for interacting with Open Geospatial Consortium web services. It abstracts the complexity of OGC service standards (WMS, WFS, WCS, CSW, WPS, WMTS) behind a common Python API, letting you query service capabilities, retrieve metadata, and fetch geospatial data without building raw HTTP requests or parsing XML directly.
The library depends on lxml for XML parsing, requests for HTTP communication, python-dateutil for timestamp handling, and pyyaml for configuration. It's maintained actively and supports current Python versions (3.12+). Some service implementations are noted as beta quality, so production use of WCS, WPS, or WMTS should be validated against your specific service provider.
Use it for
- Query WMS layer metadata and download map tiles from web map services.
- Retrieve feature data from WFS servers and inspect available feature types.
- Access and parse OGC service capabilities documents to discover available operations and formats.
- Build geospatial data pipelines that consume multiple OGC web services.
- Integrate OGC-compliant geospatial data sources into Python GIS workflows.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes.
OWSLib is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, low install friction, and a permissive license. It fills a specific niche—standardized OGC web service access—that few other Python packages address comprehensively. Install it if you need to consume WMS, WFS, or other OGC services; be aware that WCS, WPS, and WMTS are still beta.
Install
owslib on PyPI
Before you install
Installation is straightforward with low friction; the package has four common runtime dependencies (lxml, python-dateutil, pyyaml, requests) that install cleanly. Maintenance is active with a recent release 71 days ago and regular commits.
Requires Python 3.12 or later.
License in practice
BSD-3-Clause is permissive, allowing commercial and private use with minimal restrictions beyond attribution and liability disclaimers.
Quickstart
pip install OWSLib
from owslib.wms import WebMapService
wms = WebMapService('http://wms.jpl.nasa.gov/wms.cgi', version='1.1.1')
print(wms.identification.title)Verify before relying
- Current stability and production-readiness of WCS, WPS, and WMTS implementations (marked as beta in description).
- Performance characteristics when querying large or complex OGC service catalogs.
Package facts
| License | BSD-3-Clause permissive |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.12 |
| Install friction | Low. Pure-Python wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | 4 packageslxmlpython-dateutilpyyamlrequests |
| Maintenance | Actively maintained 71 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 332,451 / month, #7,507 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Development Status :: 4 - BetaEnvironment :: ConsoleIntended Audience :: DevelopersIntended Audience :: Science/ResearchOperating System :: OS IndependentProgramming Language :: PythonTopic :: Scientific/Engineering :: GIS |
Evidence: owslib-0.36.0-py3-none-any.whl
Tags
Let your AI agent find packages like this
Example. Real query, live index.
You found this page by searching. An agent finds it by wishing: SkillFed indexes 14,416 PyPI packages by what they can do, searchable in plain language.
wish › “ogc web service client”
- owslibOWSLib provides Python client access to Open Geospatial Consortium…
- titiler-applicationProvides a ready-to-run FastAPI application for serving Cloud…
- pygeofilterParses OGC filtering standards (CQL, CQL JSON, JFE, FES) into an…
Give your agent the search over MCP, or paste the wish link into any chat.
More GIS packages
Shapely provides Python tools for creating, manipulating, and analyzing 2D geometric objects (points, lines, polygons) using the GEOS library, with both scalar and vectorized NumPy-based operations.
pyproj provides a Python interface to PROJ, enabling cartographic projections and coordinate system transformations for geospatial applications.
GeoPandas extends pandas DataFrames to handle geographic data, combining pandas operations with shapely geometry and spatial analysis capabilities that would otherwise require a spatial database.
Install it if you work with geographic data in Python and want to avoid setting up a spatial database or learning a separate GIS tool.
geopy is a Python client for geocoding and distance calculation that converts addresses to coordinates and vice versa using multiple web-based geocoding services, and computes geodesic and great-circle distances between geographic points.
Install it if you need geocoding or distance calculations in your application.
Pyogrio provides fast, bulk-oriented read and write access to vector spatial data formats (Shapefile, GeoPackage, GeoJSON, etc.) via GDAL/OGR bindings, typically for use with GeoPandas GeoDataFrames.
h3 provides Python bindings to Uber's H3 geospatial indexing library, converting geographic coordinates into hierarchical hexagonal grid cells and performing spatial operations on them.
See also pystac-client · google-analytics-data · google-geo-type · google-cloud-monitoring-dashboards · torchgeo · google-cloud-resource-manager · arcgis · sentinelhub · google-cloud-dataflow-client · google-cloud-monitoring