Observable
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Observable vs VS Code:
a side-by-side comparison for 2024
Comparing two data science notebooks.
VS Code
WebsiteVisual Studio Code is a lightweight but powerful source code editor. It supports working with Jupyter Notebooks natively, as well as through Python code files.
Observable
VS Code
Setup
Fully managed (setup in minutes)
No, you must host it yourself
Can you self-host?
Can you self-host?
No, you must use a managed offering
You can self-host (setup in hours)
Features
Is it Jupyter compatible?
Is it Jupyter compatible?
Not Jupyter-compatible
Jupyter-compatible
Programming languages
Programming languages
JS
Jupyter languages (e.g. Python, R)
What kind of data sources can you connect to?
What kind of data sources can you connect to?
Connect with JS libraries (e.g. REST APIs)
Connect to databases (MySQL, Postgres)
Connect to data warehouses (BigQuery, Snowflake)
Provided file storage
Connect with Jupyter libraries (e.g. SQLAlchemy, psycopg2)
What kind of data visualization can you do?
What kind of data visualization can you do?
JS data visualization (e.g. D3, Vega)
Jupyter data visualization (e.g. Matplotlib, Altair, Plotly)
Reactivity
Reactivity
Full, realtime reactivity
No reactivity, you decide the execution order
No notebook scheduling
Notebook scheduling with additional tools
Management
Reproducibility
Reproducibility
Environments are reproducible by default
Execution is reproducible by default
There is no support for reproducibility
Version history is built in
File-based (use Git)
Multiple editors at the same time
File-based (use Git)
Comments
Comments
Comment on items within a notebook
File-based (use GitHub)
Notebook organization
Notebook organization
View notebooks in a list
File-based
Licensing
License
License
Proprietary
Open-source (MIT)
Price
Price
Free tier
Free trial (1 month)
Pay-per-user
Free
That’s it, time to try Deepnote
Alternatives to Observable and VS Code
Compare Observable and VS Code with other data science notebook tools.
| Tool | Setup | Jupyter compatibility | Languages | Data visualization | Collaborative editing | Pricing | License |
|---|
Observable | Fully managed | None | JS | Visualize with code | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
VS Code | Self-hosted | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free | Open source |
Deepnote Compare with Observable, VS Code | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter, SQL | Visualize with code or UI | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Amazon Sagemaker Compare with Observable, VS Code | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | Limited collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Jupyter Compare with Observable, VS Code | Self-hosted | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free | Open source |
Google Colab Compare with Observable, VS Code | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | Limited collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Hex Compare with Observable, VS Code | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter, SQL | Visualize with code or UI | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Databricks Notebooks Compare with Observable, VS Code | Self-hosted or fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code or UI | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
DataCamp Workspace Compare with Observable, VS Code | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter, SQL | Visualize with code or UI | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
JupyterLab Compare with Observable, VS Code | Self-hosted | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free | Open source |
CoCalc Compare with Observable, VS Code | Self-hosted or fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Open source |
Hyperquery Compare with Observable, VS Code | Fully managed | None | Python, SQL | Visualize with code or UI | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Jetbrains Datalore Compare with Observable, VS Code | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code or UI | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Kaggle Compare with Observable, VS Code | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | Limited collaboration | Free | Proprietary |
Nextjournal Compare with Observable, VS Code | Fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Noteable Compare with Observable, VS Code | Self-hosted or fully managed | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter, SQL | Visualize with code or UI | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
nteract Compare with Observable, VS Code | Self-hosted | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free | Open source |
Query.me Compare with Observable, VS Code | Fully managed | None | SQL | Visualization UI builder | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Mode Notebooks Compare with Observable, VS Code | Fully managed | None | SQL, R, Python | Visualization UI builder | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Unknown | Proprietary |
Querybook Compare with Observable, VS Code | Self-hosted | None | Python | Visualization UI builder | Realtime collaboration | Free | Open source |
Zeppelin Compare with Observable, VS Code | Self-hosted | None | Python, SQL, Spark | Unknown | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free | Open source |
Count Compare with Observable, VS Code | Fully managed | None | SQL | Visualization UI builder | Realtime collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Husprey Compare with Observable, VS Code | Fully managed | None | SQL | Visualization UI builder | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
Pluto.jl Compare with Observable, VS Code | Self-hosted | None | Julia | Unknown | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free | Open source |
Polynote Compare with Observable, VS Code | Self-hosted | None | Scala, Python | Unknown | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free | Open source |
Zepl Compare with Observable, VS Code | Fully managed | Unknown | Python, R | Unknown | Realtime collaboration | Unknown | Proprietary |