There is no direct match. However, the closest you can get:
- zc.buildout: It can setup closed environments, download/handle dependencies, initialize scripts, etc. It also builds on plugins (or "recipes", as they call them). I used it a few years ago when it was in beta stages, probably it has evolved since then. There is learning curve, as with Maven, but it's also the most powerful.
Other offerings are subsets of Maven/zc.buildout:
- Setuptools: package creation / installation
- Pip: dependency management
- Virtualenv + virtualenvwrapper: Managing separate python environments (something you don't need with Java)
You probably know Ant and shell scripting, so you could check also these Python tools:
- Fabric or Paver: command-line task runners with added flavors. They wrap your traditional command-line execution in python, and allow to manage various tasks in a more powerful way (task dependencies, interpreting output, running commands in remote server, etc.). Basically nothing you couldn't do with shell scripting, but in python, it's much less cryptic.
