"x not in y" or "not x in y"

They are identical in meaning, but the pycodestyle Python style guide checker (formerly called pep8) prefers the not in operator in rule E713:

E713: test for membership should be not in

See also "Python if x is not None or if not x is None?" for a very similar choice of style.

They always give the same result.

In fact, not 'ham' in 'spam and eggs' appears to be special cased to perform a single "not in" operation, rather than an "in" operation and then negating the result:

>>> import dis

>>> def notin():
    'ham' not in 'spam and eggs'
>>> dis.dis(notin)
  2           0 LOAD_CONST               1 ('ham')
              3 LOAD_CONST               2 ('spam and eggs')
              6 COMPARE_OP               7 (not in)
              9 POP_TOP             
             10 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
             13 RETURN_VALUE    

>>> def not_in():
    not 'ham' in 'spam and eggs'
>>> dis.dis(not_in)
  2           0 LOAD_CONST               1 ('ham')
              3 LOAD_CONST               2 ('spam and eggs')
              6 COMPARE_OP               7 (not in)
              9 POP_TOP             
             10 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
             13 RETURN_VALUE    

>>> def not__in():
    not ('ham' in 'spam and eggs')
>>> dis.dis(not__in)
  2           0 LOAD_CONST               1 ('ham')
              3 LOAD_CONST               2 ('spam and eggs')
              6 COMPARE_OP               7 (not in)
              9 POP_TOP             
             10 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
             13 RETURN_VALUE        

>>> def noteq():
    not 'ham' == 'spam and eggs'
>>> dis.dis(noteq)
  2           0 LOAD_CONST               1 ('ham')
              3 LOAD_CONST               2 ('spam and eggs')
              6 COMPARE_OP               2 (==)
              9 UNARY_NOT           
             10 POP_TOP             
             11 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
             14 RETURN_VALUE      

I had thought at first that they always gave the same result, but that not on its own was simply a low precedence logical negation operator, which could be applied to a in b just as easily as any other boolean expression, whereas not in was a separate operator for convenience and clarity.

The disassembly above was revealing! It seems that while not obviously is a logical negation operator, the form not a in b is special cased so that it's not actually using the general operator. This makes not a in b literally the same expression as a not in b, rather than merely an expression that results in the same value.

1. No, there is no difference.

   The operator not in is defined to have the inverse true value of in.

   —Python documentation

2. I would assume not in is preferred because it is more obvious and they added a special case for it.