Data Science Notebooks

Data science gets done in notebooks. This website exists to compare the features in different data science notebook tools.

Robert Lacok
About the author

My name is Robert Lacok, and I’m a data notebook enthusiast. Because I keep on top of the latest developments in the space, I wanted to share it with the world.

I’m also a product manager at Deepnote. I try to be unbiased — if you believe any tools are missing or misrepresented, please email me or open a pull request on GitHub.

Need help?

If you need help picking a data notebook for your next project, feel free to reach out to me at my personal email address. I’d be happy to chat about the pros and cons of each solution.

View all notebooks

Polynote vs VS Code

Comparing two data science notebooks.

Polynote

VS Code

A screenshot of Polynote

Polynote is a different kind of notebook. It supports mixing multiple languages in one notebook, and sharing data between them seamlessly. It encourages reproducible notebooks with its immutable data model.

WebsiteAlternatives
A screenshot of VS Code

Visual Studio Code is a lightweight but powerful source code editor. It supports working with Jupyter Notebooks natively, as well as through Python code files.

Setup

Is it managed?

No, you must host it yourself

Is it managed?

No, you must host it yourself

Can you self-host?

You can self-host (setup in hours)

Can you self-host?

You can self-host (setup in hours)

Features

Is it Jupyter compatible?

Not Jupyter-compatible

Is it Jupyter compatible?

Jupyter-compatible

Programming languages

Scala
Python

Programming languages

Jupyter languages (e.g. Python, R)

What kind of data sources can you connect to?

Unknown

What kind of data sources can you connect to?

Connect with Jupyter libraries (e.g. SQLAlchemy, psycopg2)

What kind of data visualization can you do?

Unknown

What kind of data visualization can you do?

Jupyter data visualization (e.g. Matplotlib, Altair, Plotly)

Reactivity

No reactivity, you decide the execution order

Reactivity

No reactivity, you decide the execution order

Notebook scheduling

Notebook scheduling with additional tools

Notebook scheduling

Notebook scheduling with additional tools

Management

Reproducibility

With effort, you can make reproducible environments

Reproducibility

There is no support for reproducibility

Version history

File-based (use Git)

Version history

File-based (use Git)

Collaborative editing

File-based (use Git)

Collaborative editing

File-based (use Git)

Comments

File-based (use GitHub)

Comments

File-based (use GitHub)

Notebook organization

File-based

Notebook organization

File-based

Licensing

License

Open-source (Apache 2.0)

License

Open-source (MIT)

Price

Free

Price

Free

Alternatives to Polynote and VS Code

Compare Polynote and VS Code with other data science notebook tools.

ToolSetupJupyter compatibilityProgramming languagesData visualizationCollaborative editingPricingLicense
Polynote
Self-hostedNoneScala, PythonUnknownFile-based or asynchronous collaborationFreeOpen source
VS Code
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Data Science Notebooks

Popular notebook tools

DeepnoteGoogle ColabHexJupyterJetbrains DataloreSagemaker