Correct Installation and Configuration of pip2 and pip3

You may have to keep both Python version, the old 2 and 3, at the same time due to your projects and they will require corresponding pip installation so you can separately install and maintain packages for both version.

There are multiple ways of installing pip to a system but the version configuration and setting the default version for pip executable can be tricky.

Below is the easiest solution I’ve found. This solution assumes you already have installed both Python versions and they can be executed as python2 and python3 for Python 2 and Python 3 respectively.

Check executables (optional):

$ python2 --version
Python 2.7.10
$ python3 --version
Python 3.6.4

Download the installer script:

$ wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py

Now, if you want to use pip3 as pip, you need to install pip2 first, which I recommend.

Install pip2:

$ sudo python2 get-pip.py

Finally, install pip3:

$ sudo python3 get-pip.py

Now, check their versions:

$ pip2 --version
pip 18.0 from /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip (python 2.7)
$ pip3 --version
pip 18.0 from /usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pip (python 3.6)
$ pip --version
pip 18.0 from /usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pip (python 3.6)

As you see now we have both, and the default pip points to Python 3.6 installation.

Source from SO

• python 2
• python 3
• pip
• python package manager
• install