Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Spyder VS Jupyter

Compare Spyder VS Jupyter and see what are their differences

Spyder logo Spyder

The Scientific Python Development Environment

Jupyter logo 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.
  • Spyder Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-06
  • Jupyter Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-22

Spyder features and specs

  • Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
    Spyder is a feature-rich IDE specifically designed for scientific computing, providing tools that are essential for data analysis, visualization, and more.
  • Interactive Console
    It includes an interactive IPython console, allowing for real-time execution of code and immediate feedback, which is extremely valuable for data scientists and researchers.
  • Variable Explorer
    Spyder allows users to easily inspect and modify variables using its Variable Explorer, making it simple to work with large datasets and complex structures.
  • Integrated Debugger
    The IDE offers a robust debugging environment with breakpoints, variable inspection, and step-through execution, enhancing code reliability and performance.
  • Visualization Support
    Spyder supports a wide range of visualization libraries such as Matplotlib and Seaborn, enabling users to generate plots and charts seamlessly.
  • Customizable Interface
    The interface is highly customizable, allowing users to set up their workspace according to their preferences or specific project requirements.
  • Plugin System
    Spyder supports plugins, allowing for extended functionality and the ability to tailor the IDE to specific needs.
  • Multilingual Support
    While primarily focused on Python, Spyder also supports languages like R and Matlab through plugins, broadening its usability.

Possible disadvantages of Spyder

  • Performance Issues
    Spyder can become slow or unresponsive, especially when handling very large files or datasets, negatively impacting productivity.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    For beginners, the extensive list of features can be overwhelming, and it might take considerable time to become proficient with the IDE.
  • Limited Web Development Capabilities
    Spyder is not designed for web development and lacks the features and integrations that web developers might need, such as comprehensive HTML, CSS, and JavaScript support.
  • Resource Intensive
    The IDE can be resource-intensive, which might slow down older or less powerful machines, making it less accessible for some users.
  • Dependencies
    Spyder relies on multiple external packages and dependencies, which can sometimes lead to compatibility issues or complicated installations.
  • Limited Git Integration
    While Spyder has basic integration with version control systems like Git, it lacks the full feature set found in other IDEs such as PyCharm or Visual Studio Code.
  • Fewer Community Extensions
    Compared to other popular IDEs and text editors, Spyder has fewer community-developed extensions and plugins, potentially limiting its extendability.
  • Single Focus
    The IDE's strong focus on scientific computing means it might not be as versatile for general-purpose programming, limiting its appeal to different programming communities.

Jupyter features and specs

  • Interactive Computing
    Jupyter allows real-time interaction with the data and code, providing immediate feedback and making it easier to experiment and iterate.
  • Rich Media Output
    It supports output in various formats including HTML, images, videos, LaTeX, and more, enhancing the ability to visualize and interpret results.
  • Language Agnostic
    Jupyter supports multiple programming languages through its kernel system (e.g., Python, R, Julia), allowing flexibility in the choice of tools.
  • Collaborative Features
    It enables collaboration through shared notebooks, version control, and platform integrations like GitHub.
  • Educational Tool
    Jupyter is widely used for teaching, thanks to its easy-to-use interface and ability to combine narrative text with code, making it ideal for assignments and tutorials.
  • Extensibility
    Jupyter is highly extensible with a large ecosystem of plugins and extensions available for various functionalities.

Possible disadvantages of Jupyter

  • Performance Issues
    For larger datasets and more complex computations, Jupyter can be slower compared to running scripts directly in a dedicated IDE.
  • Version Control Challenges
    Managing version control for Jupyter notebooks can be cumbersome, as they are not plain text files and include metadata that can make diffing and merging complex.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running Jupyter notebooks can be resource-intensive, especially when working with multiple large notebooks simultaneously.
  • Security Concerns
    Because Jupyter allows code execution in the browser, it can be a potential security risk if notebooks from untrusted sources are run without restrictions.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing dependencies and ensuring that the notebook runs consistently across different environments can be challenging.
  • Less Suitable for Production
    Jupyter is often considered more as a research and educational tool rather than a production environment; transitioning from a notebook to production code can require significant refactoring.

Spyder videos

First steps with Spyder - Part 1: Getting Started

More videos:

  • Review - #Spyder Movie Review - Maheshbabu - A R Murugadoss
  • Review - Can-Am Spyder F3-S Review at fortnine.ca
  • Review - Spyder review by prashanth

Jupyter videos

What is Jupyter Notebook?

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Jupyter Notebook Tutorial: Introduction, Setup, and Walkthrough
  • Review - JupyterLab: The Next Generation Jupyter Web Interface

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Spyder and Jupyter)
Text Editors
100 100%
0% 0
Data Science And Machine Learning
IDE
100 100%
0% 0
Data Dashboard
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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

Reviews

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

Spyder Reviews

Top 5 Python IDEs For Data Science
If you have the Anaconda distribution installed on your computer, you probably already know Spyder. It’s an open source cross-platform IDE for data science. If you have never worked with an IDE, Spyder could perfectly be your first approach. It integrates the essentials libraries for data science, such as NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib and IPython, besides that, it can be extended...

Jupyter Reviews

Jupyter Notebook & 10 Alternatives: Data Notebook Review [2023]
Once you install nteract, you can open your notebook without having to launch the Jupyter Notebook or visit the Jupyter Lab. The nteract environment is similar to Jupyter Notebook but with more control and the possibility of extension via libraries like Papermill (notebook parameterization), Scrapbook (saving your notebook’s data and photos), and Bookstore (versioning).
Source: lakefs.io
7 best Colab alternatives in 2023
JupyterLab is the next-generation user interface for Project Jupyter. Like Colab, it's an interactive development environment for working with notebooks, code, and data. However, JupyterLab offers more flexibility as it can be self-hosted, enabling users to use their own hardware resources. It also supports extensions for integrating other services, making it a highly...
Source: deepnote.com
12 Best Jupyter Notebook Alternatives [2023] – Features, pros & cons, pricing
Jupyter Notebook is a widely popular tool for data scientists to work on data science projects. This article reviews the top 12 alternatives to Jupyter Notebook that offer additional features and capabilities.
Source: noteable.io
15 data science tools to consider using in 2021
Jupyter Notebook's roots are in the programming language Python -- it originally was part of the IPython interactive toolkit open source project before being split off in 2014. The loose combination of Julia, Python and R gave Jupyter its name; along with supporting those three languages, Jupyter has modular kernels for dozens of others.
Top 4 Python and Data Science IDEs for 2021 and Beyond
Yep — it’s the most popular IDE among data scientists. Jupyter Notebooks made interactivity a thing, and Jupyter Lab took the user experience to the next level. It’s a minimalistic IDE that does the essentials out of the box and provides options and hacks for more advanced use.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Jupyter seems to be a lot more popular than Spyder. While we know about 216 links to Jupyter, we've tracked only 2 mentions of Spyder. 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.

Spyder mentions (2)

  • GitHub announced the 20 projects selected for their accelerator first cohort
    - https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder: The scientific Python development environment - https://github.com/strawberry-graphql/strawberry: A GraphQL library for Python that leverages type annotations. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Python GUI Programming
    Spyder is open source and I was going through the source code. It is a lot to take in and before I go through the code I wanted to ask if anyone could point me in the direction of a Spyder code skeleton. Source: about 2 years ago

Jupyter mentions (216)

  • 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 1 month ago
  • LangChain: From Chains to Threads
    LangChain wasn’t designed in isolation — it was built in the data pipeline world, where every data engineer’s tool of choice was Jupyter Notebooks. Jupyter was an innovative tool, making pipeline programming easy to experiment with, iterate on, and debug. It was a perfect fit for machine learning workflows, where you preprocess data, train models, analyze outputs, and fine-tune parameters — all in a structured,... - 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
  • Jupyter Notebook for Java
    Lately I've been working on Langgraph4J which is a Java implementation of the more famous Langgraph.js which is a Javascript library used to create agent and multi-agent workflows by Langchain. Interesting note is that [Langchain.js] uses Javascript Jupyter notebooks powered by a DENO Jupiter Kernel to implement and document How-Tos. So, I faced a dilemma on how to use (or possibly simulate) the same approach in... - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • JIRA Analytics with Pandas
    One of the most convenient ways to play with datasets is to utilize Jupyter. If you are not familiar with this tool, do not worry. I will show how to use it to solve our problem. For local experiments, I like to use DataSpell by JetBrains, but there are services available online and for free. One of the most well-known services among data scientists is Kaggle. However, their notebooks don't allow you to make... - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Spyder and Jupyter, you can also consider the following products

PyCharm - Python & Django IDE with intelligent code completion, on-the-fly error checking, quick-fixes, and much more...

Looker - Looker makes it easy for analysts to create and curate custom data experiences—so everyone in the business can explore the data that matters to them, in the context that makes it truly meaningful.

IDLE - Default IDE which come installed with the Python programming language.

Databricks - Databricks provides a Unified Analytics Platform that accelerates innovation by unifying data science, engineering and business.‎What is Apache Spark?

Thonny - Python IDE for beginners

Google BigQuery - A fully managed data warehouse for large-scale data analytics.