Observable vs VS Code
Comparing two data science notebooks.
Observable
VS Code
Make 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.
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
Can you self-host?
No, you must use a managed offering
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
JS
Programming languages
Jupyter languages (e.g. Python, R)
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 sources can you connect to?
Connect with Jupyter libraries (e.g. SQLAlchemy, psycopg2)
What kind of data visualization can you do?
JS data visualization (e.g. D3, Vega)
What kind of data visualization can you do?
Jupyter data visualization (e.g. Matplotlib, Altair, Plotly)
Reactivity
Full, realtime reactivity
Reactivity
No reactivity, you decide the execution order
Management
Reproducability
Environments are reproducible by default
Execution is reproducible by default
Reproducability
There is no support for reproducability
Comments
Comment on items within a notebook
Comments
File-based (use GitHub)
Notebook organization
View notebooks in a list
Notebook organization
File-based
Licensing
Price
Free tier
Free trial (1 month)
Pay-per-user
Price
Free
Alternatives to Observable and VS Code
Compare Observable and VS Code with other data science notebook tools.
| Tool | Setup | Jupyter compatibility | Programming 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 |
| 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 |
| Google Colab 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 |
| 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 |
| nteract Compare with | Self-hosted | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free | Open source |
| Query.me Compare with | Fully managed | None | SQL | Visualization UI builder | File-based or asynchronous collaboration | Free and paid options | Proprietary |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Noteable Compare with | Unknown | Jupyter-compatible | Jupyter | Visualize with code | Unknown | Unknown | Proprietary |
| Zepl Compare with | Fully managed | Unknown | Python, R | Unknown | Realtime collaboration | Unknown | Proprietary |
| Count Compare with | Fully managed | None | SQL, Python | Visualization UI builder | Unknown | Unknown | Proprietary |