Is the shell faster than Python

I don't use Python as it's too slow for me, e.g., the startup time for the interpreter

pyinfra is for running things across a number of machines and/or containers. For example to provision them, much like Ansible. So Python's startup time isn't terribly relevant.

Also, have you tried Python's startup time in the last decade or so? On my 2-year old, $150 computer with an Intel N100 (a very low-end CPU) running Ubuntu, `python3 -c "print('hello')"` takes 15ms. On my 8-year old Mac mini, it's 35ms. Both are significantly faster than what humans perceive as instantaneous, so Python's startup time is more than fast enough for many things.