Recently, we launched the Community Channel—a new addition to the Anaconda AI Platform that expands your organization’s access to more open source packages while preserving the governance and security controls your organization depends on.
The Foundation: Anaconda’s Trusted Distribution
For over a decade, Anaconda has hosted the world’s most trusted distribution of conda packages, serving more than 50 million users worldwide with over 4,000 carefully curated and verified packages. The Anaconda Distribution has supported data science and AI development across industries by offering vetted, enterprise-grade packages that organizations can trust.
But we know that innovation moves fast, and your teams need access to the broader open source ecosystem to stay competitive.
The Power of Conda Packages for Enterprises
Conda provides robust dependency management across platforms. Features like environment isolation and cross-language support make conda a strong fit for enterprise use, especially when consistency, reproducibility, and security are key priorities.
Today, there are two primary sources of conda packages: Anaconda’s Trusted Distribution, which is built and maintained by engineers at Anaconda and the conda-forge community repository. Conda-forge is an open-source project where contributors from around the world build and maintain packages for the broader conda ecosystem. While packages from conda-forge offer great potential to organizations, enterprise adoption has traditionally required organizations to navigate complex tradeoffs, including different build and maintenance policies and a lack of centralized oversight, which can lead to compatibility issues and security posture gaps.
Users should exercise caution when combining packages from Anaconda channels with packages from community sources like conda-forge, as conda-forge packages may introduce significant compatibility conflicts with the Anaconda Distribution. Our Community Channel provides a compatibility advantage—packages from this source are selected to work seamlessly with our trusted distribution.
The Best of Both Worlds
The Community Channel brings Anaconda customers a practical way to access more than 16,000 additional open-source packages while retaining compatibility with Anaconda’s Distribution. Which means packages in the Community Channel can be used alongside packages from the Anaconda Distribution without breaking environments or creating dependency issues. These packages are selected from conda-forge based on their compatibility with the Anaconda Distribution.
While packages in the Community Channel are currently sourced from conda-forge, we plan to expand the Community Channel to include more compatible packages from conda-forge and other open-source repositories. We’re committed to expanding our Community Channel to bring even more value from the open source ecosystem to Anaconda customers through the Anaconda AI Platform, all within the governed environment you trust.
Transforming Open Source from Liability to Strategic Asset
The Community Channel delivers measurable benefits across your organization:
For Administrators: Gain a scalable solution that meets developer demand without compromising compliance. Instead of managing complex approval processes for individual packages or maintaining separate, ungoverned environments, you can provide controlled access to thousands of additional packages through the same secure infrastructure you already trust. This approach maintains your governance standards while reducing administrative overhead.
For Developers: Access the flexibility needed to stay productive and innovative. No more waiting weeks for package approvals or working around artificial constraints. The Community Channel provides immediate access to the tools and libraries that power cutting-edge development, all within your organization’s security framework.
For Organizations: Preserve the governed access and controls that protect your business while accelerating innovation cycles. The Community Channel operates within the same enterprise-grade security, user management, and audit capabilities that make the Anaconda AI Platform suitable for mission-critical work.
The Strategic Impact
This isn’t just about adding more packages—it’s about transforming how your organization leverages open source in a secure way to meet its innovation goals. A recent Forrester Total Economic Impact report on the Anaconda AI Platform shows that organizations achieve a 119% ROI within three years, with 80% improvement in operational efficiency and 60% reduction in security incidents from addressable attacks.
The Community Channel builds on these benefits by offering access to four times more artifacts, while maintaining the governance controls that protect your organization from security and compliance risks. You’re not just expanding your teams’ technical capabilities—you’re creating a competitive advantage that enables your teams to innovate faster while staying secure.
Looking Forward
The launch of the Community Channel represents our commitment to helping organizations harness the full power of open source innovation without sacrificing the security and governance standards that enterprise success demands. By providing governed access to thousands of additional packages, we’re enabling your teams to push the boundaries of what’s possible while maintaining the controls that keep your business secure.
Ready to expand your open source capabilities? The Community Channel is available now within the Anaconda AI Platform for all Business tier customers. Experience firsthand how governed access to innovation can accelerate your organization’s AI and data science initiatives while maintaining enterprise security standards.
If you are not a Business Tier customer, reach out to our sales team for a personalized demo of the Community Channel and Anaconda AI Platform.
