Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Scikit-learn VS NLTK

Compare Scikit-learn VS NLTK and see what are their differences

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Scikit-learn logo Scikit-learn

scikit-learn (formerly scikits.learn) is an open source machine learning library for the Python programming language.

NLTK logo NLTK

NLTK is a platform for building Python programs to work with human language data.
  • Scikit-learn Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-05-06
  • NLTK Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-25

Scikit-learn features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    Scikit-learn provides a high-level interface for common machine learning algorithms, making it easy for beginners and professionals to implement complex models with minimal coding.
  • Extensive Documentation and Community Support
    The library has comprehensive documentation and a large, active community. This makes it easy to find tutorials, examples, and solutions to common problems.
  • Integration with Other Libraries
    Scikit-learn integrates well with other scientific computing libraries such as NumPy, SciPy, and pandas, allowing for seamless data manipulation and analysis.
  • Variety of Algorithms
    It offers a wide array of machine learning algorithms for tasks such as classification, regression, clustering, and dimensionality reduction.
  • Performance
    Designed with performance in mind, many of the algorithms are optimized and some even support multicore processing.

Possible disadvantages of Scikit-learn

  • Limited Deep Learning Support
    Scikit-learn is primarily focused on traditional machine learning algorithms and does not offer support for deep learning models, unlike libraries like TensorFlow or PyTorch.
  • Not Ideal for Large-Scale Data
    While Scikit-learn performs well for moderate-sized datasets, it may not be the best choice for extremely large datasets or big data applications.
  • Lack of Online Learning Algorithms
    The library has limited support for online learning algorithms, which are useful for scenarios where data arrives in a stream and model needs to be updated incrementally.
  • Less Flexibility in Customization
    It can be less flexible compared to lower-level libraries when highly customized or specific implementations are needed.
  • Dependency Overhead
    Scikit-learn relies on several other Python libraries like NumPy and SciPy, which might require users to manage multiple dependencies.

NLTK features and specs

  • Comprehensive Library
    NLTK offers a wide range of tools and resources for various NLP tasks, including tokenization, parsing, and semantic reasoning, making it a versatile library for text processing.
  • Educational Resource
    NLTK is well-documented and includes many tutorials and examples, which makes it an excellent tool for learning and teaching natural language processing.
  • Pre-trained Models
    NLTK provides access to several pre-trained models and corpora, saving users time and effort required for training from scratch.
  • Python Integration
    Being a Python library, NLTK easily integrates with other Python-based tools and libraries, allowing for smooth workflow integration.

Possible disadvantages of NLTK

  • Performance Limitations
    NLTK can be slower than other modern NLP libraries like spaCy when processing large datasets, making it less suitable for performance-critical applications.
  • Complexity for Beginners
    While NLTK is comprehensive, its extensive range of features and options may be overwhelming for beginners who are new to NLP.
  • Outdated in Some Areas
    As NLP has rapidly evolved, some parts of NLTK's offering are less up-to-date compared to newer libraries or methodologies in NLP.
  • Limited Neural Network Support
    NLTK primarily focuses on traditional NLP approaches and lacks built-in support for modern deep learning frameworks that are available in libraries like TensorFlow or PyTorch.

Scikit-learn videos

Learning Scikit-Learn (AI Adventures)

More videos:

  • Review - Python Machine Learning Review | Learn python for machine learning. Learn Scikit-learn.

NLTK videos

29 Python NLTK Text Classification Sentiment Analysis movie reviews

More videos:

  • Review - Tutorial 24: Sentiment Analysis of Amazon Reviews using NLTK VADER MODULE PYTHON with [SOURCE CODE]

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Scikit-learn and NLTK)
Data Science And Machine Learning
Spreadsheets
0 0%
100% 100
Data Science Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Natural Language Processing

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Scikit-learn and NLTK

Scikit-learn Reviews

15 data science tools to consider using in 2021
Scikit-learn is an open source machine learning library for Python that's built on the SciPy and NumPy scientific computing libraries, plus Matplotlib for plotting data. It supports both supervised and unsupervised machine learning and includes numerous algorithms and models, called estimators in scikit-learn parlance. Additionally, it provides functionality for model...

NLTK Reviews

We have no reviews of NLTK yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Scikit-learn seems to be a lot more popular than NLTK. While we know about 31 links to Scikit-learn, we've tracked only 3 mentions of NLTK. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Scikit-learn mentions (31)

  • Must-Know 2025 Developer’s Roadmap and Key Programming Trends
    Python’s Growth in Data Work and AI: Python continues to lead because of its easy-to-read style and the huge number of libraries available for tasks from data work to artificial intelligence. Tools like TensorFlow and PyTorch make it a must-have. Whether you’re experienced or just starting, Python’s clear style makes it a good choice for diving into machine learning. Actionable Tip: If you’re new to Python,... - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • 🚀 Launching a High-Performance DistilBERT-Based Sentiment Analysis Model for Steam Reviews 🎮🤖
    Scikit-learn (optional): Useful for additional training or evaluation tasks. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Essential Deep Learning Checklist: Best Practices Unveiled
    How to Accomplish: Utilize data splitting tools in libraries like Scikit-learn to partition your dataset. Make sure the split mirrors the real-world distribution of your data to avoid biased evaluations. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • How to Build a Logistic Regression Model: A Spam-filter Tutorial
    Online Courses: Coursera: "Machine Learning" by Andrew Ng EdX: "Introduction to Machine Learning" by MIT Tutorials: Scikit-learn documentation: https://scikit-learn.org/ Kaggle Learn: https://www.kaggle.com/learn Books: "Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras & TensorFlow" by Aurélien Géron "The Elements of Statistical Learning" by Trevor Hastie, Robert Tibshirani, and Jerome Friedman By... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Link Prediction With node2vec in Physics Collaboration Network
    Firstly, we need a connection to Memgraph so we can get edges, split them into two parts (train set and test set). For edge splitting, we will use scikit-learn. In order to make a connection towards Memgraph, we will use gqlalchemy. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
View more

NLTK mentions (3)

  • Just created an app to help me practice my Polish grammar. The passages are from classical literature available in the public domain. If you would like to try it, the link is in the comments.
    To give you some further inspiration, you might want to check out the NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit - https://www.nltk.org/ ). It is a huge collection of tools for language data processing in general. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Which not so well known Python packages do you like to use on a regular basis and why?
    I work mostly in the NLP space, so other libraries I like are spaCy, nltk, and pynlp lib. Source: over 2 years ago
  • How to make/program an AI? Is it even possible?
    Learn some Python and play around with existing AI libraries. Go through things like nltk.org and some freecodecamp tutorials to get some hands-on knowledge. Follow this sub and watch the kinds of projects people are creating. Source: over 3 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Scikit-learn and NLTK, you can also consider the following products

Pandas - Pandas is an open source library providing high-performance, easy-to-use data structures and data analysis tools for the Python.

spaCy - spaCy is a library for advanced natural language processing in Python and Cython.

OpenCV - OpenCV is the world's biggest computer vision library

Amazon Comprehend - Discover insights and relationships in text

NumPy - NumPy is the fundamental package for scientific computing with Python

Google Cloud Natural Language API - Natural language API using Google machine learning