JupyterHub vs Polynote

JupyterHub gives groups access to computational environments without requiring each person to install and maintain one. It creates a separate Jupyter environment for each user, and starts, manages and proxies that user's notebook server. It can serve interfaces such as Jupyter Notebook, JupyterLab, RStudio and nteract, with authentication configured through pluggable options including OAuth and GitHub. Organizations can run it in the cloud or on their own hardware, including virtual machines or a laptop. The Littlest JupyterHub targets a small, single-server setup, while Zero to JupyterHub with Kubernetes is designed for larger cloud deployments and includes a Helm chart and deployment guide. The project describes JupyterHub as container-friendly and Kubernetes-compatible, with capacity for up to tens of thousands of users. Its REST API supports administration of the Hub, users and services. JupyterHub is open-source software released under a modified BSD license and is free to use. It supports Python, R, Julia and Scala, with ipynb notebooks, and is intended for classrooms, research groups and corporate data science teams.

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.