---
id: pybind11
version: "3.1.0"
license: BSD-3-Clause
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# pybind11 — Seamless operability between C++11 and Python

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Popularity: top 1,000 on PyPI

## Install

pip install pybind11
uv add pybind11
poetry add pybind11

## Description

.. figure:: https://github.com/pybind/pybind11/raw/master/docs/pybind11-logo.png
   :alt: pybind11 logo

**pybind11 (v3)  — Seamless interoperability between C++ and Python**

|Latest Documentation Status| |Stable Documentation Status| |Gitter chat| |GitHub Discussions|

|CI| |Build status| |SPEC 4 — Using and Creating Nightly Wheels|

|Repology| |PyPI package| |Conda-forge| |Python Versions|

`Setuptools example <https://github.com/pybind/python_example>`_
• `Scikit-build example <https://github.com/pybind/scikit_build_example>`_
• `CMake example <https://github.com/pybind/cmake_example>`_

.. start


**pybind11** is a lightweight header-only library that exposes C++ types
in Python and vice versa, mainly to create Python bindings of existing
C++ code. Its goals and syntax are similar to the excellent
`Boost.Python <http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_58_0/libs/python/doc/>`_
library by David Abrahams: to minimize boilerplate code in traditional
extension modules by inferring type information using compile-time
introspection.

The main issue with Boost.Python—and the reason for creating such a
similar project—is Boost. Boost is an enormously large and complex suite
of utility...

## AI interpretation — verify before relying

pybind11 is a lightweight header-only C++ library that creates Python bindings for C++ code, mapping C++ types, functions, classes, and STL containers to Python with minimal boilerplate.

Verdict: pybind11 is a mature, actively maintained library with no known vulnerabilities and broad Python version support (3.9–3.15). It is the standard choice for creating Python bindings from C++ code, offering a lightweight alternative with significantly smaller binaries and faster compile times than comparable solutions.

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