The "Python is the language, not the implementation" answer has already been given by @dalke, so I'll answer whether cPython, the implementation of Python that

The "Python is the language, not the implementation" answer has already been given by @dalke, so I'll answer whether cPython, the implementation of Python that Python developers commonly use, is slower than C/C++: cPython is necessarily slower and uses more memory than C for most tasks, and that's because cPython is implemented in C. You couldn't expect a new programming language that was implemented in Python to be faster than Python, either. This is less of a concern for scientists and others with very tough performance requirements than it otherwise would be, in part, because cPython code can delegate C and C++ code[0]. This means portions of your program that need to be highly optimized can be implemented in C or C++, while the rest of your program can continue to be written in Python. [0] https://docs.python.org/3/extending/extending.html https://docs.python.org/3/extending/extending.html