Observable
WebsiteMake sense of the world with data, together. Explore, visualize, and analyze data. Collaborate with the community. Learn and be inspired. Share insights with the world.
Observable vs Zeppelin:
a side-by-side comparison for 2024
Comparing two data science notebooks.
Zeppelin
WebsiteWeb-based notebook that enables data-driven, interactive data analytics and collaborative documents with SQL, Scala and more.
Observable
Zeppelin
Setup
Is it managed?
Is it managed?
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
Not Jupyter-compatible
Programming languages
Programming languages
JS
Python
SQL
Spark
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
What kind of data visualization can you do?
What kind of data visualization can you do?
JS data visualization (e.g. D3, Vega)
Unknown
Reactivity
Reactivity
Full, realtime reactivity
No reactivity, you decide the execution order
Notebook scheduling
Notebook scheduling
No notebook scheduling
Notebook scheduling is built in
Management
Reproducibility
Reproducibility
Environments are reproducible by default
Execution is reproducible by default
With effort, you can make reproducible environments
Version history
Version history
Version history is built in
File-based (use Git)
Collaborative editing
Collaborative editing
Multiple editors at the same time
File-based (use Git)
Multiple editors, one at a time (asynchronous)
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 (Apache 2.0)
Price
Price
Free tier
Free trial (1 month)
Pay-per-user
Free