Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

marimo VS Surf

Compare marimo VS Surf 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.

marimo logo marimo

The next-generation Python notebook

Surf logo Surf

A simple web browser based on WebKit2/GTK+
Not present
  • Surf Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-08-25

marimo features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Surf features and specs

  • Minimalism
    Surf is extremely lightweight and focuses on offering a minimalistic web browsing experience, which can result in faster performance and lower resource usage.
  • Customizability
    Users can tailor Surf to their specific needs through patches and configuration. This makes it highly adaptable for those who are comfortable with a bit of coding.
  • Integration with Suckless Tools
    Surf fits seamlessly into the Suckless ecosystem, integrating well with other minimal and efficient tools like the DWM window manager.
  • Privacy
    By default, Surf doesn't include many of the tracking features found in mainstream browsers, potentially offering a more privacy-conscious browsing experience.
  • Compliance with UNIX Philosophy
    Surf adheres to the UNIX philosophy of doing one thing well, focusing solely on web browsing without additional, potentially unwanted, features.

Possible disadvantages of Surf

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Customizing and configuring Surf can be challenging for users who are not familiar with programming or the command line.
  • Limited Features
    Due to its minimalistic design, Surf lacks many modern features like extensions, tabs, and a built-in password manager that are standard in other browsers.
  • Manual Updates
    Users need to manually update the browser, which can be a hassle compared to automatic updates provided by mainstream browsers.
  • Compatibility Issues
    Surf may have trouble rendering some modern web pages correctly, as it lacks some of the compatibility layers found in more feature-complete browsers.
  • Community Support
    Being a niche and minimalist browser, Surf does not have as large a user base or as much community support compared to more popular browsers.

Analysis of marimo

Overall verdict

  • marimo is an excellent modern reactive notebook for Python that solves many of the pain points associated with traditional notebooks like Jupyter, making it a strong choice for reproducible, interactive, and shareable data work.

Why this product is good

  • Reactive execution model automatically re-runs dependent cells when a variable changes, eliminating hidden state and out-of-order execution bugs common in Jupyter
  • Notebooks are stored as pure Python (.py) files, making them git-friendly, easy to diff, and importable as modules or executable as scripts
  • Built-in interactive UI elements (sliders, dropdowns, tables) that bind directly to Python variables without callbacks or extra frameworks
  • Can be deployed as interactive web apps or dashboards directly from the notebook, blurring the line between exploration and production
  • Open source with active development and a growing community, plus fast performance and a clean, modern interface

Recommended for

  • Data scientists and analysts who want reproducible, bug-free notebook workflows
  • Developers who value version control and want notebooks that work well with git
  • Educators and teams building interactive dashboards or demos from Python code
  • Anyone frustrated with Jupyter's hidden state and out-of-order execution issues
  • Researchers who need to share reproducible, executable analyses

Analysis of Surf

Overall verdict

  • Surf can be considered 'good' for users who value simplicity, minimal system resource usage, and the ability to customize their browsing experience via external scripts or patches. However, it might not be suitable for those who rely heavily on modern web features and extensions available in mainstream browsers.

Why this product is good

  • Surf is a minimalist web browser created by the Suckless community, known for developing software that adheres to the philosophy of simplicity and clarity. It is designed to be lightweight and efficient, making it suitable for users who prefer minimalism and are comfortable using a browser without a graphical user interface (GUI) for settings or extensions.

Recommended for

  • Users who are familiar with Unix-like operating systems and command-line interfaces.
  • Individuals who prefer lightweight and efficient software.
  • Those willing to customize their browser through external tools and scripts.
  • Minimalists who do not require a plethora of features and extensions.

marimo videos

Marimo Notebooks Intro | Charting Python's rise in popularity

More videos:

  • Review - Python notebooks: Marimo vs. Jupyter
  • Review - The Next Generation Of Python Notebook: Getting Started With marimo

Surf videos

Pro Surfer Reviews Surf Movies, from 'Blue Crush' to 'Point Break' | Vanity Fair

More videos:

  • Review - Noel's "2021 Favorite Finds" Surfboards & Surf Product Must Haves
  • Tutorial - Surf Tip "How to Surf Faster in Small Waves" Part 1

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to marimo and Surf)
Data Visualization
100 100%
0% 0
Web Browsers
0 0%
100% 100
Text Editors
100 100%
0% 0
Web Development Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using marimo and Surf. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Surf should be more popular than marimo. It has been mentiond 46 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.

marimo mentions (15)

  • Pluto.jl 1.0 release โ€“ reactive notebook for Julia
    Pluto is great. I use it all the time. If you like the reactivity/reproducibility but are wedded to Python, you might want to check out Marimo, which is also great. [https://marimo.io/] It too puts the output of a cell above the code so if you're unable to adapt to things that are different it's also probably not for you. FWIW, Observable's Notebooks (Javascript) work the same way: output above the code... - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • Show HN: I'm tracking 197 known exposures of health data from UK Biobank
    Marimo notebooks give you the best of both worlds (https://marimo.io). - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Why DuckDB is my first choice for data processing
    Agree with the author, will add: duckdb is an extremely compelling choice if youโ€™re a developer and want to embed analytics in your app (which can also run in a web browser with wasm!) Think this opens up a lot of interesting possibilities like more powerful analytics notebooks like marimo (https://marimo.io/) โ€ฆ and thatโ€™s just one example of many. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Building SSR-Friendly Avatars with In-Browser AI: How I Trained Python Models and Ported Them to TensorFlow.js
    The training pipeline uses Marimo notebooks (think Jupyter, but reactive). Models are quantized to uint8 and served via CDN. Total bundle for a predictor: up-to 2MB. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Installing & Working with Python - in Ubuntu 24.04
    Marimo is a Jupyter notebook with each cell being somewhat logically connected to each other. That's way if you update the value of a variable in a cell and re-run it, related values in other cells will be auto-updated and auto-run. This is called reactive execution. Thus the notebook can act as a single python script or app and has an extension of .py instead of .ipynb. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
View more

Surf mentions (46)

  • My server is a phone now
    When I read about the browser 'surf', I first thought of the browser from suckless: https://surf.suckless.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 3 days ago
  • How to build a circular LCD clock
    Interesting, surf is based off WebKit2. https://surf.suckless.org/. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 month ago
  • Ladybird browser spreads its wings
    What about surf? https://surf.suckless.org/. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • A peculiarity of the X Window System: Windows all the way down
    Another awesome aspect of X11: Xembed. Since it's "windows all the way down" you can have apps (rather than the window manager or root window) be the parent of other app windows. Two nifty examples of this: * https://tools.suckless.org/tabbed/ * https://surf.suckless.org/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • The Ladybird Browser Project
    Don't forget WebKit. It leads to project such as https://surf.suckless.org. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing marimo and Surf, you can also consider the following products

Observable - Interactive code examples/posts

Coindive - Stay effortlessly updated on your favorite crypto projects.

Hyperquery - Data notebook built for speed, visibility, and collaboration

Sidekick Browser - The fastest browser for work ever made

Zerve AI - What if Jupyter + Figma + VSCode had a baby?

Vivaldi - Vivaldi is a free, fast web browser designed for power-users. You decide how you browse. Download Vivaldi's fully customisable browser now and browse your way.