I've just installed Spyder, and I'm really disappointed with how slow it is. Starting it up feels like a tug of war, and doing tasks takes forever. My machine meets all the requirements, and I've never had issues with any other applications; even apps that are 20GB run faster than this 600MB one. Is this a common problem with Spyder? I'm looking for some honest opinions here.
3 Answers
Spyder is primarily designed for users transitioning from Matlab. I started with Anaconda and Spyder too, but quickly moved to VSCode (and now Cursor) for better performance. I wouldn’t recommend Spyder for serious work beyond basic scripts.
You might want to consider switching to PyCharm Community or just using VSCode with the Python extension instead. They're generally more efficient and can save you some frustration.
I've got to agree, I'm a VSCode purist myself!
I ditched all my fancy IDEs and set up Neovim. It's super fast and light on resources, plus I tailored it exactly how I like it. Definitely worth trying!
Since Spyder is built using Python, it can be slow on lower-end hardware. You might get better performance with PyCharm instead.

Matlab is a heavy application, but I find it runs smoothly. Honestly, Spyder feels more like a sloth in comparison!