11 Python Cheat Sheets Every Developer Should Know

With the great IT revolution and emergence of data science, Python’s importance in tech has only increased, and has since become a primary programming language in data science and software development applications. 

So, it’s worth having resources like Python cheat sheets to help in everyday coding with the language.

What Is a Python Cheat Sheet?

While you may understand Python and its concept, it’s impossible to remember everything about the language. Even the most experienced developers can easily forget how to slice a list, make various character classes for a regex or create a loop.

This is where Python cheat sheets come into play. They help you find solutions without worrying about unnecessary details and make it straightforward so you don’t need to remember everything about the language.

These cheat sheets provide a basic reference for beginners and advanced developers. Along with lowering the entry barrier for newcomers, they can also help veterans refresh their old Python tricks.

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Top Python Cheat Sheets

Every cheat sheet comes with its benefits and drawbacks, but the cheat sheets ranked here are some of the most popular and widely used in Python.

1. Pythoncheatsheet.org

Pythoncheatsheet.org is, without a doubt, an all-inclusive Python cheat sheet that has been the first in the ranking for Python cheat sheets for many years.

It covers both Python basics and an extensive support for exception handling and virtual environments.

Pythoncheatsheet.org also encompasses functions, data structures, lists, JSON, flow control, sets, loops, debugging, YAML, data classes, context manager and a lot more.

It’s a complete cheat sheet for both beginner and experienced developers. On top of that, it has a strong community and offers continuous updates to cover all the bugs and include new functions.

2. Python Cheat Sheet by WebsiteSetup

The Python cheat sheet by WebsiteSetup is another excellent Python cheat sheet that closely follows Pythoncheatsheet.org in terms of relevance.

It’s an extensive cheat sheet that covers all primary and secondary concepts for Python and how to create strings and troubleshoot errors.

The primary and intermediate concepts that Website Setup covers in Python include defining functions, lists, data types, loops, dealing with exceptions, math operators, tuples, conditional statements and dictionaries, etc.

3. Python 3 Cheat Sheet by Laurent Pointal

This two-page Python cheat sheet goes over Python 3 basics like data types, container types, assigning variables, conversions, loops and more. Whether to get Python beginners started or act as a reference for experts, the sheet is a list-style resource for Python fundamentals. The cheat sheet itself was created by Laurent Pointal, a scientific research study engineer at LISN who specializes in application development and system administration.

4. Python Cheat Sheet by Code with Mosh

This cheat sheet from Code With Mosh is named after Mosh Hamedani, its founder and a software engineer who runs the Programming with Mosh YouTube channel. 

In the cheat sheet Hamedani offers, we can see that almost all the basics of Python have been covered, just like they are in Pythoncheatsheet.org.

However, there’s a lot more to this sheet compared to the previous cheat sheets.

In this one, we can find topics like arithmetic operations, operators, receiving inputs, packages, standard libraries, if statements, PyPI, inheritance, and a lot more.

It’s essential to know that the topics we have mentioned here are hardly ever covered in other Python cheat sheets.

5. Python Cheat Sheet for Beginners by DataCamp

This cheat sheet by DataCamp showcases Python beginner topics like characters and strings, lists, dictionaries, math functions and DataFrames. The webpage comes with code examples so readers can see the code in real time and practice along if they wish. DataCamp also offers Python cheat sheets for Pandas, NumPy, data wrangling and more.

6. Python for Data Science Cheat Sheet by DataCamp

This Python cheat sheet, created by DataCamp, is designed specifically for data science.

That doesn’t mean the cheat sheet only covers data science — it includes almost all the basics of Python, plus Python tools and libraries like Jupyter Notebook, NumPy, SciPy, Pandas and Scikit-Learn. It also covers the basics of the Matplotlib, Seaborn and Bokeh data visualization libraries.  

Each focus area is one page that provides quick answers to data types and conversions, lists, operations, libraries, NumPy arrays, methods, variables and calculations, strings and functions methods and how to install Python.

7. Comprehensive Python Cheatsheet by gto76

This extensive Python cheat sheet offered by user gto76 on GitHub is a go-to cheat sheet when you are working on a Python project. Gto76 has ensured that it’s a complete guide for developers and data scientists and that it’s equally helpful for beginners and experts.

The sheet covers Python topics such as range, enumerates, dictionaries, generator, covers lists, iterator and tuple. It’s also a complete cheat sheet for issues like data types, logging, scraping, NumPy, games, data, image, introspection, metaprogramming, operators, audio and threading, etc.

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8. Python Cheat Sheet by Real Python

The Python Cheat Sheet by Real Python is another extensive yet straightforward Python cheat sheet that can help developers in their Python-related tasks. It not only covers the basics of Python, but it does so with syntax and practical examples.

Apart from the primary topics that it covers, Real Python deals with strings, Booleans, numbers, functions, control statements and loops.

Since it covers numbers, it’s also a useful resource for data scientists. To make it more friendly for data scientists, Real Python also covers tuples, advanced list comprehensions, numerical lists and almost everything that a data scientist working with Python could ask for.

9. Python Cheat Sheet by DaveChild

This Python cheat sheet on Cheatography is a two-page cheat sheet that can help you find quick solutions for your Python projects.

It primarily covers Python sys topics like Python sys variables sys.argv, file methods, list methods, datetime methods, Python os variables, Python indexes and slices, unique methods and string methods, etc.

The Python cheat sheet includes both operating system and built-in system variables, on top of standard methods for working with strings, lists, files and a lot more.

10. Python Crash Course by Eric Matthes

Python Crash Course is another practical, multi-paged Python cheat sheet designed to help beginners, but also serve professional and expert developers.

Created by a math teacher and hacker, it primarily focuses on Python lists, i.e., how to build and modify a list, access elements from a list and loop through the values in a given list. It also covers numerical lists, advanced list comprehensions, tuples and almost everything else you need to know about lists.

Python Crash Course isn’t just a cheat sheet for lists, however, as it also touches on essential topics like variables, classes, dictionaries and functions, etc. If you’re a beginner in Python, this is the perfect cheat sheet to help you move to the next level. The course also has a second edition up to date with Python 3.8.

11. Basic and Intermediate Data Science Cheat Sheet by Dataquest

While the basic part of this cheat sheet deals with all the basic concepts that we have read in other cheat sheets, the intermediate portion of this cheat sheet by DATAQUEST is designed for expert developers.

Its intermediate part assumes that you have all the basic knowledge of Python. You won’t be able to make the most of it unless you completely understand the basics.

This cheat sheet will help you deal with range, lists, logging, scraping, NumPy, iterator, tuple and data types, etc. However, if you don’t understand these topics at an advanced level, you should consult with the basic part of this cheat sheet. Only then will you be able to use the intermediate cheat sheet.

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Advantages of a Python Cheat Sheet

We have covered almost all the necessary cheat sheets that you need to know for beginners and advanced levels. While some developers can remember everything about Python, most have trouble remembering every little thing. This ends up making the process of development very time consuming.

Python cheat sheets are helpful for both types mentioned above of developers and data scientists, as it offers quick Python solutions without worrying about remembering every bit of Python.