JupyterLab vs. Jupyter Notebook: A Detailed Comparison
synopsis
Jupyter Notebook is an open source web application that allows users to create and share documents containing real-time code, equations, visualizations, and explanatory text.JupyterLab is the next-generation interface to Jupyter Notebook, offering more advanced features and a more modern user interface.
user
Jupyter Notebook
- Single Document Interface: Jupyter Notebook uses a single-document interface and can only edit and view one notebook at a time.
- navigator: The list of notebooks is on the left side of the interface and the user needs to switch between different notebooks.
- opening (chess jargon): The interface is relatively simple, focusing mainly on editing and displaying notebooks.
JupyterLab
- Multi-Document Interface: JupyterLab supports a multi-document interface that allows users to open and view multiple documents at the same time, including notebooks, text files, terminals, and more.
- navigator: JupyterLab provides a more sophisticated interface that allows users to navigate between different panels and tabs.
- opening (chess jargon): Users can customize the workspace and adjust the position of the panel by dragging and dropping.
functionality
Jupyter Notebook
- Basic Editing: Supports editing, running and displaying results of code units.
- Basic Interaction: Supports Markdown units, which can contain formatted text, images and links.
- Basic Extension: Extend functionality by installing additional plugins.
JupyterLab
- Senior Editor: In addition to Code and Markdown, JupyterLab supports a wide range of file types, such as plain text, CSV, JSON, and more.
- Advanced Interaction: JupyterLab offers richer interactivity, e.g. the ability to edit diagrams directly in the notebook.
- Extended system: JupyterLab has a more robust extension system that allows new features to be added by installing extensions.
coordination
Jupyter Notebook
- Basic collaboration: Jupyter Notebook enables collaboration through tools such as Binder or NBViewer, but these tools are not built-in.
JupyterLab
- Built-in collaboration: JupyterLab has built-in collaboration features that allow multiple users to edit the same notebook at the same time.
Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
Jupyter Notebook
- Jupyter Notebook provides basic IDE features such as code completion and simple debugging support.
JupyterLab
- JupyterLab provides a more complete IDE experience, including more advanced code completion, debugging tools, Git integration, and more.
endpoint
Jupyter Notebook
- Jupyter Notebook has no built-in terminal functionality.
JupyterLab
- JupyterLab has a built-in terminal that allows users to use a terminal and a laptop in the same workspace.
Installation and configuration
Jupyter Notebook
- Jupyter Notebook is usually installed as part of a Jupyter project and the installation process is simple.
JupyterLab
- JupyterLab can be installed via pip and after installation Jupyter Notebook users can switch to JupyterLab with a simple command line command.
Community and resources
Jupyter Notebook
- Jupyter Notebook has a large user base and a wealth of online resources, including tutorials, plugins, and templates.
JupyterLab
- JupyterLab is a newer tool and the community is growing rapidly, providing many resources on how to use and extend JupyterLab.
reach a verdict
JupyterLab, the successor to Jupyter Notebook, offers a more modern and feature-rich interface. While Jupyter Notebook is still a powerful and widely used tool, JupyterLab's multi-document interface, built-in collaboration features, and extended system make it a popular choice for data scientists and researchers. As JupyterLab continues to evolve, we can expect it to offer even more innovative features and improvements.