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I have been using zeppelin for a couple of years, now superset is gaining more attention for better Visualization features etc. so I am trying to understand exact differences and also help if someone is looking to select a BI tool.

I have listed a few unique features based on initial reading on superset, it would be really appreciated if anyone can contribute more to the list .

  • Most big data cluster integration support (Spark, flink etc)
  • Inline code execution using paragraphs
  • Multi language supports

As I am not a proper user of superset,I would like to know more unique features of Zeppelin and these features are not possible or hard to do in Superset.

Also I got below details from apache wiki, but I don't see these can be unique factor except leveraging notebooks style

Apache Zeppelin is an indirect competitor, but it solves a different use case.

Apache Zeppelin is a web-based notebook that enables interactive data analytics. It enables the creation of beautiful data-driven, interactive and collaborative documents with SQL, Scala and more. Although a user can create data visualizations using this project, it leverages a notebook style user interfaces and it is geared towards the Spark community where Scala and SQL co-exist

scoder
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1 Answers1

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Fundamentally, Zeppelin and Superset take significantly different viewpoints on the data workflow.

Zeppelin is centered around the [computational notebook interface][1], which enables you to write code fragments, run them and internalize the output, and iterate & expand. Zeppelin notebooks then focus on working with 20+ programming [languages and interpreters][2]. Zeppelin can also query popular databases using the JDBC connector.

Superset is centered around the BI use case and ships with a SQL IDE and a no-code chart builder. The important difference here is that Superset can only query data from SQL speaking databases. Superset, unlike Zeppelin, doesn't enable you to run arbitrary code from a variety of programming languages.

The use cases, workflows, and design choices are very different between both of these tools. Superset wants to enable end-users & analysts and SQL ninjas to create dashboards (that others in an organization may consume). Zeppelin wants to level up data scientists & programmers to analyze data, and is less focused on building dashboards for the rest of the organization to consume.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notebook_interface#:~:text=A%20notebook%20interface%20(also%20called,and%20text%20into%20separate%20sections. [2]: https://zeppelin.apache.org/supported_interpreters.html

Srini Kadamati
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