Innovative microscopy techniques are often impeded by a lack of control software that is capable of meeting demands for speed and performance, integrating new and diverse types of hardware, providing the flexibility to adapt in real time to the data being captured, and providing user-friendly programming interfaces. As a result, researchers often end up developing custom software that works only with specific instruments, using closed-source and/or proprietary programming languages. Pycro-Manager is a package that meets these challenges by enabling python control of Micro-Manager (an open-source microscopy control software) as well as the simple development of customized experiments that involve microscope hardware control integrated with real-time image processing. It is compatible with hundreds of microscope components and full microscopes and provides open source APIs for the integration of new hardware. More information can be found at: https://pycro-manager.readthedocs.io/en/latest/