Find the similarity metric between two strings

There is a built in.

from difflib import SequenceMatcher

def similar(a, b):
    return SequenceMatcher(None, a, b).ratio()

Using it:

>>> similar("Apple","Appel")
0.8
>>> similar("Apple","Mango")
0.0

I think maybe you are looking for an algorithm describing the distance between strings. Here are some you may refer to:

1. Hamming distance
2. Levenshtein distance
3. Damerau–Levenshtein distance
4. Jaro–Winkler distance

Solution #1: Python builtin

use SequenceMatcher from difflib

pros: native python library, no need extra package.
cons: too limited, there are so many other good algorithms for string similarity out there.

>>> from difflib import SequenceMatcher
>>> s = SequenceMatcher(None, "abcd", "bcde")
>>> s.ratio()
0.75

Solution #2: jellyfish library

its a very good library with good coverage and few issues. it supports:
- Levenshtein Distance
- Damerau-Levenshtein Distance
- Jaro Distance
- Jaro-Winkler Distance
- Match Rating Approach Comparison
- Hamming Distance

pros: easy to use, gamut of supported algorithms, tested.
cons: not native library.

example:

>>> import jellyfish
>>> jellyfish.levenshtein_distance(u'jellyfish', u'smellyfish')
2
>>> jellyfish.jaro_distance(u'jellyfish', u'smellyfish')
0.89629629629629637
>>> jellyfish.damerau_levenshtein_distance(u'jellyfish', u'jellyfihs')
1