Modin
What it is: Drop-in replacement for pandas that parallelizes operations across all CPU cores. Change one line of code (import modin.pandas as pd), get automatic speedups.
What It Does Best
Instant parallelization. Replace import pandas with import modin.pandas. That's it. Existing code runs faster using all cores. No rewrite needed.
Pandas compatibility. Same API. Same syntax. Falls back to pandas for unsupported operations. Minimal risk, easy to try.
Scalable backends. Uses Ray or Dask for execution. Can scale from laptop to cluster without code changes. Start small, grow big.
Pricing
Free. Open source, Apache 2.0 license.
When to Use It
✅ Existing pandas code is slow
✅ Multi-core machine (8+ cores best)
✅ Don't want to rewrite code
✅ Operations that benefit from parallelization (groupby, merge, apply)
When NOT to Use It
❌ Small datasets (overhead not worth it)
❌ Single-core machines
❌ Need latest pandas features (Modin lags behind)
❌ Can switch to Polars (cleaner solution)
Bottom line: Easiest way to speed up pandas. One line change, automatic parallelization. Not as fast as Polars, but requires zero code rewrite. Great bridge solution while transitioning to modern tools.