A virtual environment in Python is a way to create isolated environments for different projects, so that each project can have its own specific version of Python and installed packages. This allows for more flexibility and control over dependencies, and helps to prevent conflicts between different projects.

One popular tool for creating virtual environments in Python is virtualenv. It allows you to create a new environment and activate it, and then you can install packages using pip in the environment. Once you are done working on the project, you can deactivate the environment and switch to another one.

Another popular tool is conda. It is a package and environment management system that is commonly used in scientific computing and data science. It allows you to create virtual environments and install packages, similar to virtualenv, but also has additional features such as managing multiple versions of packages and handling dependencies.

To create a virtual environment with virtualenv:

code:
$ pip install virtualenv
$ virtualenv myenv
$ source myenv/bin/activate
To create a virtual environment with conda:

Copy code
$ conda create --name myenv
$ conda activate myenv
Once you have activated the environment, you can install packages using pip or conda and they will be installed into that environment and not globally.