Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Colaboratory VS PythonAnywhere

Compare Colaboratory VS PythonAnywhere and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Colaboratory logo Colaboratory

Free Jupyter notebook environment in the cloud.

PythonAnywhere logo PythonAnywhere

Host, run, and code Python in the cloud: PythonAnywhere
  • Colaboratory Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-11-01
  • PythonAnywhere Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-09-30

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.

PythonAnywhere features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    PythonAnywhere provides a user-friendly interface with pre-configured settings, which makes it simple for beginners to deploy and manage Python applications without the need to manage server infrastructure.
  • Integrated Development Environment
    It includes an in-browser code editor and Python console, making it convenient to edit and run code on the go without needing to install any software locally.
  • Affordable Pricing
    Offers various pricing tiers, including a free tier, which is very attractive for small projects, prototypes, and learning purposes.
  • Scalability
    Offers options to scale applications as needed, making it suitable for growing projects that may require additional resources over time.
  • Built-in Python Libraries
    Comes pre-installed with many common Python libraries and frameworks, saving users the time and effort of setting up dependencies.
  • Built-in MySQL Support
    Provides built-in support for MySQL databases, making it straightforward to set up and manage databases for your applications.
  • Automated Backups
    Includes automated backup features to help secure your data and provide peace of mind.

Possible disadvantages of PythonAnywhere

  • Limited Customization
    The pre-configured environment limits customization options, which may be a drawback for more advanced users who require specific configurations or installations.
  • Free Tier Limitations
    The free tier has significant limitations, including restricted CPU time and storage space, which can hinder more demanding applications.
  • Performance
    Shared plans might experience slower performance during peak times due to the shared nature of the infrastructure.
  • Lack of Root Access
    Users do not have root access to the underlying system, which can be a limitation for deploying certain types of applications or custom services.
  • Support Limitations
    While it offers community support and documentation, the level of professional support might not meet the needs of all users, especially those on lower-tier plans.
  • Limited Language Support
    Primarily focused on Python, which may not suit all projects, especially those requiring multi-language support.
  • Resource Constraints
    Lower-tier plans have stringent resource limits (CPU, RAM, storage), which can be restrictive for resource-intensive applications.

Colaboratory videos

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

PythonAnywhere videos

Python Anywhere with pythonanywhere - Simplified Python VPS hosting

More videos:

  • Review - Deploy Python Flask App on Pythonanywhere.com
  • Review - PythonAnywhere in one minute

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Colaboratory and PythonAnywhere)
Development
100 100%
0% 0
Text Editors
0 0%
100% 100
Online Learning
100 100%
0% 0
Cloud Computing
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 PythonAnywhere

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

PythonAnywhere Reviews

We have no reviews of PythonAnywhere yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Colaboratory should be more popular than PythonAnywhere. It has been mentiond 224 times since March 2021. 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 / about 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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PythonAnywhere mentions (55)

  • [Offer] I need someone to set up a webhook in my WordPress site and a Python server with listener + bot
    The website is already built. Each comment will have a reddit post URL, and the bot should leave a comment on that URL. We can use pythonanywhere.com for this to make it easiest. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Flask and web hosting
    If you are learning, use pythonanywhere.com as they specialize in python, and make setup easy. Only $5 a month. Start with a barebones flask app, get it to run, then follow a tutorial. Actually better to build the app locally, easier to test with IDE like Pycharm. Then upload to the net. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Redirecting client to my server via a external server
    Hello, I have a Minecraft server running on a Rpi with Paper. It works great and I use it to play with some of my friends. However, the server's public IP address often changes, meaning that I have to give my friends the new IP address daily. Being a programmer, I feel this could be automated. I don't want to buy a domain, so I want to try and setup a system where the server sends Its IP to my PythonAnywhere... Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Question Gallery WebApp Django or Flask?
    Hosting wise, I would reccomend pythonanywhere.com, combined with either https://imagekit.io or https://cloudinary.com. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Cheap Heroku alternative for PHP MySQL app
    So what is the best alternative? I have one Plotly Dash app on pythonanywhere.com where I spend 6 bucks a month so I don't want to spend anymore than 5 dollars per month on the PHP + MySQL. Source: about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Colaboratory and PythonAnywhere, 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.

Heroku - Agile deployment platform for Ruby, Node.js, Clojure, Java, Python, and Scala. Setup takes only minutes and deploys are instant through git. Leave tedious server maintenance to Heroku and focus on your code.

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

Google App Engine - A powerful platform to build web and mobile apps that scale automatically.

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.

DigitalOcean - Simplifying cloud hosting. Deploy an SSD cloud server in 55 seconds.