Apache Zeppelin vs Polynote

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.

Polynote is free, open-source notebook software with first-class Scala support. One notebook can mix Scala, Python, SQL, and Vega while sharing data between languages. Its immutable data model and ordered cell semantics support reproducible work. Editing includes autocomplete, error highlighting, rich text, and LaTeX equations. The interface tracks kernel tasks and highlights the statement currently running. A plot editor and Vega support handle visualization. Polynote integrates with Apache Spark for Scala and Python; Python runs through Jep in the JVM and can share data with Scala. The software is a JVM-based server that serves a web client and is distributed for self-hosting on Linux, macOS, and other listed environments. It supports Jupyter .ipynb and Zeppelin .json formats. Runtime documentation reports successful testing with Java 8 and Java 11 and requires Python 3 with pip. Installation warns that arbitrary remote code execution makes internet-accessible deployment unsafe.