The package manager included with the Anaconda distribution is conda.
Conda was created to simplify installing software and resolving dependency conflicts, especially in scientific Python workflows. Unlike a tool focused only on Python packages, conda can manage packages written in multiple languages, including libraries with compiled binary components. It also creates isolated environments, allowing separate projects to use different Python versions and dependency sets on the same computer.
Anaconda is a broad distribution that bundles Python, many commonly used data-science packages, graphical tools such as Anaconda Navigator, and conda itself. Miniconda is the smaller bootstrap distribution: it includes conda and essential components but leaves most additional packages for the user to install.
A common mix-up is pip. Pip is Python’s standard package installer and draws primarily from the Python Package Index, while conda can obtain packages from Conda channels and coordinate non-Python dependencies. They can be used together, but mixing installers inside one environment requires care because each tool tracks packages differently. The name conda is also not an acronym; it is the project’s package-manager name.