cibuildwheel¶

Python wheels are great. Building them across Mac, Linux, Windows, on multiple versions of Python, is not.

cibuildwheel is here to help. cibuildwheel runs on your CI server - currently it supports GitHub Actions, Azure Pipelines, Travis CI, AppVeyor, CircleCI, and GitLab CI - and it builds and tests your wheels across all of your platforms.

What does it do?¶

While cibuildwheel itself requires a recent Python version to run (we support the last three releases), it can target the following versions to build wheels:

	macOS Intel	macOS Apple Silicon	Windows 64bit	Windows 32bit	Windows Arm64	manylinux musllinux x86_64	manylinux musllinux i686	manylinux musllinux aarch64	manylinux musllinux ppc64le	manylinux musllinux s390x	manylinux musllinux armv7l	Pyodide
CPython 3.6	✅	N/A	✅	✅	N/A	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅⁵	N/A
CPython 3.7	✅	N/A	✅	✅	N/A	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅⁵	N/A
CPython 3.8	✅	✅	✅	✅	N/A	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅⁵	N/A
CPython 3.9	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅²	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅⁵	N/A
CPython 3.10	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅²	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅⁵	N/A
CPython 3.11	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅²	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅⁵	N/A
CPython 3.12	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅²	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅⁵	✅⁴
CPython 3.13³	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅²	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅⁵	N/A
PyPy 3.7 v7.3	✅	N/A	✅	N/A	N/A	✅¹	✅¹	✅¹	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
PyPy 3.8 v7.3	✅	✅	✅	N/A	N/A	✅¹	✅¹	✅¹	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
PyPy 3.9 v7.3	✅	✅	✅	N/A	N/A	✅¹	✅¹	✅¹	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
PyPy 3.10 v7.3	✅	✅	✅	N/A	N/A	✅¹	✅¹	✅¹	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

^{¹ PyPy is only supported for manylinux wheels.}
^{² Windows arm64 support is experimental.}
^{³ Free-threaded mode requires opt-in using CIBW_FREE_THREADED_SUPPORT.}
^{⁴ Experimental, not yet supported on PyPI, but can be used directly in web deployment. Use --platform pyodide to build.}
^{⁵ manylinux armv7l support is experimental. As there are no RHEL based image for this architecture, it's using an Ubuntu based image instead.}

Builds manylinux, musllinux, macOS 10.9+ (10.13+ for Python 3.12+), and Windows wheels for CPython and PyPy
Works on GitHub Actions, Azure Pipelines, Travis CI, AppVeyor, CircleCI, GitLab CI, and Cirrus CI
Bundles shared library dependencies on Linux and macOS through auditwheel and delocate
Runs your library's tests against the wheel-installed version of your library

See the cibuildwheel 1 documentation if you need to build unsupported versions of Python, such as Python 2.

Usage¶

cibuildwheel runs inside a CI service. Supported platforms depend on which service you're using:

	Linux	macOS	Windows	Linux ARM	macOS ARM	Windows ARM
GitHub Actions	✅	✅	✅	✅¹	✅	✅²
Azure Pipelines	✅	✅	✅		✅	✅²
Travis CI	✅		✅	✅
AppVeyor	✅	✅	✅		✅	✅²
CircleCI	✅	✅		✅	✅
Gitlab CI	✅	✅	✅	✅¹	✅
Cirrus CI	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅

^{¹ Requires emulation, distributed separately. Other services may also support Linux ARM through emulation or third-party build hosts, but these are not tested in our CI.}
^{² Uses cross-compilation. It is not possible to test arm64 on this CI platform.}

To get started, head over to the setup guide.

How it works¶

This diagram summarises the steps that cibuildwheel takes on each platform to build your package's wheels.

Manylinux container

Test virtualenv

Linux

macOS

Windows

For each version of Python

If tests are configured

This isn't exhaustive, for a full list of the things cibuildwheel can do, check the options page.