pip install from git repo branch

Using pip with git+ to clone a repository can be extremely slow (test with https://github.com/django/django@stable/1.6.x for example, it will take a few minutes). The fastest thing I've found, which works with GitHub and BitBucket, is:

pip install https://github.com/user/repository/archive/branch.zip

which becomes for Django master:

pip install https://github.com/django/django/archive/master.zip

for Django stable/1.7.x:

pip install https://github.com/django/django/archive/stable/1.7.x.zip

With BitBucket it's about the same predictable pattern:

pip install https://bitbucket.org/izi/django-admin-tools/get/default.zip

Here, the master branch is generally named default. This will make your requirements.txt installing much faster.

Some other answers mention variations required when placing the package to be installed into your requirements.txt. Note that with this archive syntax, the leading -e and trailing #egg=blah-blah are not required, and you can just simply paste the URL, so your requirements.txt looks like:

https://github.com/user/repository/archive/branch.zip

Prepend the url prefix git+ (See VCS Support):

pip install git+https://github.com/tangentlabs/django-oscar-paypal.git@issue/34/oscar-0.6

And specify the branch name without the leading /.