One of the biggest differences is Python compared to Excel is that Python is open-source. Microsoft owns and operates Excel. While you can develop your own add-ins and user-defined functions, etc., it is still a proprietary product.

By contrast, anyone can develop almost anything for Python and easily share it — Python is a totally public programming language.

This opens up so many possibilities for using Python. Think of something you can do on a computer, and someone probably has written a Python library to do that.

This open-endedness of Python also can make it tricky for newcomers to manage these libraries and packages. 

Fortunately one package offers a great way to download other packages (meta, right?). 

This video from ProgrammingKnowledge2’s YouTube channel will walk you through how to download PIP on a Windows machine. (I am unsure about how this compares to Mac — most of my readers use Windows for its superior Excel software.)

Having this installed on your machine will make working with Python and following along with future tutorials much easier.