Apache Zeppelin vs Pluto.jl

Apache Zeppelin is a web-based notebook for interactive data analytics and collaborative documents. Its pluggable interpreters support work in SQL, Scala, Python, R, and other languages, with backends including Apache Spark and Flink. Use it to ingest and explore data, analyze results, and create visualizations. Built-in charts can display output from any language backend; pivot charts support drag-and-drop aggregation. The Spark integration can provide SparkContext and SQLContext automatically, load dependencies at runtime, and show job progress or cancel jobs. Its SQL interpreter connects to JDBC sources such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Redshift, and Apache Hive. Collaborators can share notebook URLs and receive changes in real time. The project documents single-user and multi-user deployments, including LDAP support. Zeppelin is open source under the Apache License 2.0 and costs nothing. It runs on Linux, macOS, self-hosted, and web environments. Anonymous access is enabled by default, so its documentation recommends configuring authentication or limiting use to a secured, trusted environment.

Pluto.jl is a free, open-source reactive notebook for the Julia programming language, developed for education. Its cells track dependencies, and changes cause affected cells to rerun. PlutoUI provides widgets such as sliders, text fields, and buttons; custom widgets can be built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Pluto analyzes package use, manages a separate package environment for each notebook, and stores environment details in the notebook file. Its documentation says there is no mutable workspace, so the visible code describes the program state. Notebooks can be exported with cell outputs as HTML or PDF. The software is available under the MIT License at free and supports real-time collaboration. To use the package, install Julia and start Pluto from Julia's terminal or REPL; the site lists Julia 1.10 through 1.12. It also links to an online editor powered by mybinder.org and featured notebooks that can run in a browser. Pluto was developed alongside MIT's Introduction to Computational Thinking course and is designed for students and teachers.