What is the advantage if any of using assert over an if-else condition?

Question

eg x = "hello". Instead of doing assert x == "hello", can I not do a if x != "hello". Is using assert more pythonic?

Answer 1

According to the documentation, assert x == "hello" is equivalent to

if __debug__:
    if not (x == "hello"):
        raise AssertionError

__debug__ is a read-only variable that is set to True if Python is not run with the -O flag, and the compiler can omit the assertion check altogether when -O is used (rather than constantly checking the value of __debug__ at run-time).

Use assertions for debugging and testing, to quickly end your program if an assertion fails. Use if statements for code that must run to enable the rest of your code to work properly.