Google Colab
Colab notebooks allow you to combine executable code and rich text in a single document, along with images, HTML, LaTeX and more.
Google Colab (which is short for Colaboratory) is a hosted Jupyter notebook. It is a great option for data scientists and python library authors because:
- It is free to use.
- It is easy to open notebooks directly from GitHub.
If you’re browsing Github for notebooks, you’ll find a lot of links to open them on Google Colab for this reason.
Because it’s based on Jupyter, you can use the vast array of scientific computing libraries available on Python. However, just like Jupyter, it’s got a bit of a steep learning curve. It works best for technical people who are comfortable with Git.
It has rich integration with Google Drive. You can load files directly from Google Drive which is especially convenient if you have datasets in Google Sheets. If you’re not opening notebooks from GitHub, you can conveniently open notebooks from and save to Google Drive, meaning notebooks live alongside your other Google Drive files.
Despite “colab” being in its name, it’s not the best option for teams. It lacks realtime collaboration and versioning, which means you’ll have a much harder time working with other people.
Google Colab capabilities
Setup
Can you self-host?
Features
Is it Jupyter compatible?
Programming languages
What kind of data sources can you connect to?
What kind of data visualization can you do?
Reactivity
Management
Reproducibility
Comments
Notebook organization
Licensing
License
Price
Alternatives to Google Colab
Tool | Setup | Jupyter compatibility | Programming languages | Data visualization | Collaborative editing | Pricing | License |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Google Colab | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | Limited collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Jupyter Compare with | Self-hosted | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free | Open source |
Amazon Sagemaker Compare with | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | Limited collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Deepnote Compare with | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter, SQL | Visualize with code or UI | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Hex Compare with | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter, SQL | Visualize with code or UI | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Databricks Notebooks Compare with | Self-hosted or fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code or UI | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
DataCamp Workspace Compare with | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter, SQL | Visualize with code or UI | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
JupyterLab Compare with | Self-hosted | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free | Open source |
CoCalc Compare with | Self-hosted or fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Open source |
Hyperquery Compare with | Fully managed | None | Python, SQL | Visualize with code or UI | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Jetbrains Datalore Compare with | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code or UI | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Kaggle Compare with | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | Limited collaboration | Free | Proprietary |
Nextjournal Compare with | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Noteable Compare with | Self-hosted or fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter, SQL | Visualize with code or UI | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
nteract Compare with | Self-hosted | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free | Open source |
Observable Compare with | Fully managed | None | JS | Visualize with code | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Query.me Compare with | Fully managed | None | SQL | Visualization UI builder | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
VS Code Compare with | Self-hosted | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free | Open source |
Mode Notebooks Compare with | Fully managed | None | SQL, R, Python | Visualization UI builder | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Unknown | Proprietary |
Querybook Compare with | Self-hosted | None | Python | Visualization UI builder | Realtime collaboration | Free | Open source |
Zeppelin Compare with | Self-hosted | None | Python, SQL, Spark | Unknown | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free | Open source |
Count Compare with | Fully managed | None | SQL | Visualization UI builder | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Husprey Compare with | Fully managed | None | SQL | Visualization UI builder | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Pluto.jl Compare with | Self-hosted | None | Julia | Unknown | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free | Open source |
Polynote Compare with | Self-hosted | None | Scala, Python | Unknown | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free | Open source |
Zepl Compare with | Fully managed | Unknown | Python, R | Unknown | Realtime collaboration | Unknown | Proprietary |