Google Colab vs JupyterLab
Google Colab
colab.research.google.com
JupyterLab
jupyter.orgSide by side
| Figure | Google Colab | JupyterLab |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $8.33/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 9 | 1 |
| Spec score · Coding Playgrounds | 9.3 (#4) | 9.1 (#9) |
| Spec score · Data Science Platforms | 9.0 (#2) | 8.5 (#5) |
| Spec score · Notebook Software | 9.2 (#2) | 8.8 (#4) |
| Spec score · Data Science Analytics | 9.0 (#3) | 8.5 (#5) |
| API | The Colab API can programmatically manage runtimes and is in beta with access by allowlist. | A public API is documented for building npm-based JupyterLab extensions and application components. |
| Documentation depth | Official documentation includes FAQs, example notebooks, release notes, API reference, Workspace administration help and Colab Enterprise documentation. | Documentation includes user guides, developer material, an extension migration guide, API reference, security guidance and a detailed changelog. |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Intended users | Google describes Colab as useful for students, data scientists, AI researchers, educators, and researchers. | JupyterLab is focused on interactive, exploratory computing and is suited to workflows such as data science, scientific computing, computational journalism, and machine learning. |
| Rating on Chrome Web Store | 3.7 out of 5 from 26 reviews | 4.5 out of 5 from 39 ratings |
| Rating on G2 | 4.4 out of 5 from 57 reviews | 4.5 out of 5 from 3 reviews |
| What it does | Google Colab is a browser-based hosted Jupyter notebook service for Python, machine learning, data science and education that requires no local setup. | JupyterLab is a web-based environment for interactive and reproducible computing with notebooks, terminals, text editors, file browsing and rich outputs. |
Plans
Google Colab
- Colab Pro$8.33 a month
- Colab Pro+$41.66 a month
- ColabFree
- Colab freeFree
- Colab EnterprisePriced on request
- Colab ProPrice not published
- Colab Pro+Price not published
- Colab Pro / Pro+ / Pay As You GoPriced on request
- Pay As You GoPrice not published
In their own words
Google Colab
Google Colab lets users write and run Python in a browser without configuring a local environment, with access to GPUs and notebook sharing. Its hosted Jupyter notebooks combine executable code with rich text, images, HTML, and LaTeX. Data can come from Google Drive, spreadsheets, GitHub, and other sources, with Google Cloud Storage, Sheets, and BigQuery resources listed for integration. Colab AI can generate or transform code, explain Python libraries, suggest fixes, and perform multi-step data-analysis workflows. By default, it does not access Drive files or user secrets, though it can generate code to access them when explicitly requested. Google says generative-AI features collect prompts, related code, outputs, usage information, and feedback; human reviewers may process that data for up to 18 months. Free notebooks can run for at most 12 hours, depending on availability and usage. Pro+ supports continuous execution up to 24 hours when enough compute units are available. Colab also has a Visual Studio Code extension and a beta, allowlist-gated API. Paid plans start at 8.33 USD/user/mo (annual).
JupyterLab
JupyterLab is a web-based environment for interactive work with notebooks, code and data. Its workspace brings notebooks, text editors, terminals and custom components together in tabs and splitters. Code consoles act as scratchpads, and kernel-backed documents can run code in files such as Markdown, Python, R and LaTeX. It supports the .ipynb format used by classic Jupyter Notebook, and can view and edit formats including Markdown, images, CSV, JSON, HTML, LaTeX and PDF. Visualization libraries include matplotlib and Plotly; interactive plots or widgets may require additional packages. Extensions can add themes, viewers, editors, output renderers and interface controls, but can execute code in the browser, server and kernel, so only trusted extensions are advised. Real-time collaboration can be enabled with jupyter_collaboration. JavaScript and HTML outputs from notebooks created elsewhere remain hidden until the notebook is trusted. JupyterLab is free, open-source software under a modified BSD license, installed with pip or via a Homebrew command for macOS and Linux. It runs on Linux, macOS, the web and self-hosted systems.