Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Colaboratory VS CloudShell

Compare Colaboratory VS CloudShell and see what are their differences

Colaboratory logo Colaboratory

Free Jupyter notebook environment in the cloud.

CloudShell logo CloudShell

Cloud Shell is a free admin machine with browser-based command-line access for managing your infrastructure and applications on Google Cloud Platform.
  • Colaboratory Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-11-01
  • CloudShell Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-12

Colaboratory features and specs

  • Free Access
    Colaboratory is freely available to anyone with a Google account, making it accessible for students, researchers, and developers without cost barriers.
  • Cloud-based
    Colab operates in the cloud, eliminating the need for local computational resources and allowing access from any device with internet connectivity.
  • GPU and TPU Support
    Colab provides free access to GPUs and TPUs, which can significantly speed up machine learning tasks and deep learning experiments.
  • Integration with Google Drive
    Easy integration with Google Drive allows for convenient storage and retrieval of data, notebooks, and other resources.
  • Collaborative Editing
    Multiple users can collaborate on a notebook in real-time, making it a valuable tool for team projects and pair programming.
  • Pre-configured Environment
    Colab comes pre-installed with a wide array of popular machine learning libraries and dependencies, reducing setup time and effort.

Possible disadvantages of Colaboratory

  • Session Time Limits
    Colab has time limits for sessions, meaning your environment can be reset if left idle for too long or if the maximum session duration is reached.
  • Resource Limits
    There are limitations on the computational resources and memory available, which can be restrictive for very large and complex tasks.
  • Dependency Management
    While many libraries are pre-installed, managing and updating dependencies can sometimes be problematic, leading to conflicts or version issues.
  • Privacy Concerns
    Since your code and data are stored on Google’s servers, there can be privacy and security concerns related to sensitive information.
  • Network Dependency
    Being a cloud-based service, Colaboratory requires a constant internet connection, which may not be feasible in all scenarios or locations.
  • Limited Customization
    Customization of the environment is limited compared to a local setup where you have full control over system configurations and installed software.

CloudShell features and specs

  • Integrated Environment
    CloudShell provides a fully integrated development environment directly within your browser, including access to Google Cloud resources, pre-installed Google Cloud SDK, and other useful tools.
  • Convenience
    Because it's browser-based, there is no need to install or configure anything locally, which can save considerable setup time and eliminate environment inconsistencies.
  • Security
    Operating within Google's infrastructure can add layers of security, including secure connection to cloud resources and less risk of exposing local machines to vulnerabilities.
  • Access to Project Resources
    Directly connects to Google Cloud resources associated with your account, making it easy to manage and deploy applications within your cloud environment.
  • Scalability
    Seamlessly scalable environment that can handle different workloads without performance degradation.
  • Persistent Storage
    CloudShell offers persistent storage, allowing users to save their work and configurations, which are available in future sessions.
  • Pre-installed Tools
    Includes a range of pre-installed tools, such as git, gcloud SDK, and language libraries, enabling efficient development and deployment workflows.

Possible disadvantages of CloudShell

  • Resource Limits
    CloudShell has usage limits, including limited disk space and CPU, which may not be sufficient for all types of workloads, particularly resource-intensive tasks.
  • Inactive Use Timeouts
    Sessions that are inactive for a period of time may be automatically terminated, which can disrupt ongoing work.
  • Dependency on Internet Connection
    Being a cloud-based solution, a stable internet connection is required. Any disruption in connectivity can hamper development and deployment processes.
  • Latency Issues
    Depending on your geographical location, there may be latency issues which can affect performance and response times.
  • Limited Customization
    While CloudShell provides many pre-installed tools, users have limited control over the environment compared to a locally managed development setup.
  • Paid Subscription Needed for Extensive Use
    Beyond the free tier, extensive usage of CloudShell resources may incur additional costs, which can add up depending on the scale and nature of the tasks.
  • Learning Curve
    New users who are not familiar with Google Cloud's ecosystem may face an initial learning curve to fully leverage CloudShell's capabilities.

Colaboratory videos

Google Colaboratory review: the best tool for Python programming and data analysis

CloudShell videos

No CloudShell videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Colaboratory and CloudShell)
Development
86 86%
14% 14
Text Editors
36 36%
64% 64
Online Learning
100 100%
0% 0
IDE
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Colaboratory and CloudShell

Colaboratory Reviews

Jupyter Notebook & 10 Alternatives: Data Notebook Review [2023]
Google Colaboratory (known as Colab) is a browser-based notebook created by the Google team. The environment is based on the Jupyter Notebook environment, so it will be recognizable to those of you who are already familiar with Jupyter.
Source: lakefs.io
12 Best Jupyter Notebook Alternatives [2023] – Features, pros & cons, pricing
Microsoft Azure Notebooks is a cloud-based platform for data science projects and machine learning that is similar to Google Colab and Kaggle Notebooks. It provides access to powerful hardware resources, including GPUs and TPUs, for running machine learning and deep learning models, as well as a number of other useful features, such as integration with Microsoft Azure...
Source: noteable.io

CloudShell Reviews

We have no reviews of CloudShell yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Colaboratory seems to be a lot more popular than CloudShell. While we know about 224 links to Colaboratory, we've tracked only 12 mentions of CloudShell. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Colaboratory mentions (224)

  • Introduction to TensorFlow with real code examples
    If you don't want to set up TensorFlow locally, you can use Google Colab, which comes with a GPU by default. You can access it via this link. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • The 3 Best Python Frameworks To Build UIs for AI Apps
    Showcase and share: Easily embed UIs in Jupyter Notebook, Google Colab or share them on Hugging Face using a public link. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Build a RAG-Powered Research Paper Assistant
    Google Colab Documentation Beginner-friendly documentation to get started with Google Colab: Https://colab.research.google.com/. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • PyTorch Fundamentals: A Beginner-Friendly Guide
    If you don't want to install PyTorch locally, you can use Google Colab, which provides a free cloud-based environment with PyTorch pre-installed. This allows you to run PyTorch code without any setup on your local machine. Simply go to Google Colab and create a new notebook. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Applied Artificial Intelligence & its role in an AGI World
    Leverage versatile resources to prototype and refine your ideas, such as Jupyter Notebooks for rapid iterations, Google Colabs for cloud-based experimentation, OpenAI’s API Playground for testing and fine-tuning prompts, and Anthropic's Prompt Engineering Library for inspiration and guidance on advanced prompting techniques. For frontend experimentation, tools like v0 are invaluable, providing a seamless way to... - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
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CloudShell mentions (12)

  • Intro to the YouTube APIs: searching for videos
    Command-line (gcloud) -- Those who prefer working in a terminal can enable APIs with a single command in the Cloud Shell or locally on your computer if you installed the Cloud SDK which includes the gcloud command-line tool (CLI) and initialized its use. If this is you, issue this command to enable the API: gcloud services enable youtube.googleapis.com Confirm all the APIs you've enabled with this command:... - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Explore the world with Google Maps APIs
    Gcloud/command-line - Finally, for those more inclined to using the command-line, you can enable APIs with a single command in the Cloud Shell or locally on your computer if you installed the Cloud SDK (which includes the gcloud command-line tool [CLI]) and initialized its use. If this is you, issue the following command to enable all three APIs: gcloud services enable geocoding-backend.googleapis.com... - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Getting started with the Google Cloud CLI interactive shell for serverless developers
    While you might find that using the Google Cloud online console or Cloud Shell environment meets your occasional needs, for maximum developer efficiency you will want to install the Google Cloud CLI (gcloud) on your own system where you already have your favorite editor or IDE and git set up. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think
    Here is the product https://cloud.google.com/shell It has a quick start guide and docs. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • I do not have a personal laptop. Should I use my school's library computers to start learning or just wait until I get a laptop?
    If you are worried about creating other accounts etc - you can just use your gmail account with https://cloud.google.com/shell and that gives you a very small vm and a coding environment (replit or colab are way better than this though). Source: about 3 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Colaboratory and CloudShell, you can also consider the following products

Jupyter - Project Jupyter exists to develop open-source software, open-standards, and services for interactive computing across dozens of programming languages. Ready to get started? Try it in your browser Install the Notebook.

GitHub Codespaces - GItHub Codespaces is a hosted remote coding environment by GitHub based on Visual Studio Codespaces integrated directly for GitHub.

Kaggle - Kaggle offers innovative business results and solutions to companies.

CodeTasty - CodeTasty is a programming platform for developers in the cloud.

Teammately.ai - Teammately is The AI AI-Engineer - the AI Agent for AI Engineers that autonomously builds AI Products, Models and Agents based on LLM, prompt, RAG and ML.

Dirigible - Dirigible is a cloud development toolkit providing both development tools and runtime environment.