Collaboration actually done right

We make it free and easy for anyone to work together anytime, anywhere. We developed a custom cloud notebook editor to deliver better collaboration without the cost.
What will you build with it?

Disclaimer: actually colab has no affiliation with Google Colab. It was created in a few months by two undergrads in 2021 as a research project before Jupyter added the feature. The editor is now offline and this site remains for illustration purposes only.

A cloud based Jupyter editor unlike any of its kind

We took a new approach to an old problem. We built the editor from the ground up to integrate tightly with our collaboration features but paid our respects to what came before. If you're a Jupyter user, you should still feel right at home.

Share with just the right amount of access

You alone are in control of your notebooks, unless you want to share. We let you choose who can view and edit your notebooks and you can revoke permission at any time.

Chat with your team, fellow students, and instructors

Have a question for the instructor? No problem, you can message them via the built-in chat. We have a built-in chat feature because coding together is better than coding alone.

View everyone's outputs

Sometimes you want to run code yourself, other times you want to see what your instructor or teammate has instead. We let you choose whose outputs you are viewing with the click of a button.

Import the notebooks you already have

Hey we get it, we're not your first Jupyter editor and that's okay. You can import the notebooks, and if you ever need your notebook back you can export them too.

Use a remote machine when you need raw power your computer can't provide

By default we let you run your notebooks on your own computer but sometimes that doesn't cut it. Need a Tesla A100 for Deep Learning? Connect directly to a VM from your favorite cloud providers.

It doesn't have to break the bank

The tools on the market are all expensive and lack the flexibility required by small teams and ad-hoc workshops, so we took a new angle. Institutions and organizations cover their costs of running workshops and classes, and individuals can use the regular platform with small teams for free. Let's look at some examples of how much it costs us to operate versus the commercially available alternatives.

Let's say you're hosting a 5 day professional training seminar

Thanks to our sponsors and support from the Open Source community

We're a not-for-profit organization so through the help of grants and donations we aim to deliver the service at no cost to our users. If you believe in our work and our mission, please consider sponsoring and supporting us so we can continue to improve and deliver best-in-class collaborative software for everyone.

Our mission is to expand opportunities for collaborative remote learning

One of the biggest challenges, and one that we are acutely aware of now more than ever, is that it can be really hard to deliver the same learning experience remotely. One way that a lot of students got exposure to areas of CS is through workshops like the ones hundreds attended each year run by SIG AIDA on campus. Those workshops would offer an opportunity for younger students to interact and work with their peers, following along with the presentation and seeing their code run before their own eyes. Unfortunately, the tools on the market for collaborating on code and running workshops are either built only for a handful of users or cost exorbitant amounts of money. Inspired by our experiences working directly with professors, hearing their frustrations with what's available to them today, and our experiences running workshops through SIG AIDA, we aimed to build something better and to make it completely Open Source and free for individuals. We want students anywhere around the world to be able to join workshops with hundreds or thousands of their peers and learn in real-time. We want students to be able to follow along with the teacher during class and see for themselves how the code works. So we set out to make that a reality.

~ Jeff & Bailey