One of the most-frequently asked questions of all time is this: "I have a Python application I've developed; how do I deliver it to my customer/friend/...?"

Here are typical answers:

• tar up the source and send it. It's reasonable to expect that the end-user's host will have Python installed. MacOS comes that way; most Linux distributions do; and Python is easy enough to install under Windows

• for Windows, use MovablePython;

• for this purpose, Pyrex can be regarded as a language variant to Python itself;

• Freeze

• cx Freeze

• py2app is for Macintosh

• py2exe

• PyInstaller (supports Windows, Linux and soon Mac)

• Esky (adds a bootstrap executable and allows to auto-update your applications over the network or from local directory; supports Windows, Linux and Mac)

• Pyarmor (obfuscate python scripts, bind obfuscated scripts to fixed machine or expire obfuscated scripts)

FredrikLundh discussed some of these in 2003.

As of 2007, py2exe perhaps is second in use only to source distribution.