# Jupyter Notebooks

![](https://2327526407-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2F-LvBP1svpACTB1R1x_U4%2F-LvHJ32JL_4hyT9PVdc0%2F-LvHdWVlYJo3mLe1f-8y%2Fimage.png?alt=media\&token=2ff640d2-4f5a-42cc-ab02-a8928c78e15e)

Jupyter Notebooks are popular a development and training environment which have become the de-facto integrated development environment (IDE) for data science and machine learning.

Jupyter Notebooks are wildly popular but it's worth noting there are some drawbacks compared to working in a traditional IDE:

* Versioning notebooks is challenging.  The code itself lives in the Notebook, not a source code management (SCM) system like Git/GitHub.  This means you don’t get the benefits of merging, branching, and diffing code.
* Distributed training is not possible without a custom setup.  
* Live collaboration is non-existent. Jupyter is not designed to have multiple users work in the same Notebook or on the same code concurrently.  Notebooks may be forked but there is no off-the-shelf way to merge forks down the road.

As a result, some view Jupyter Notebooks solely as a tool for prototyping, analysis, and exploration.

There are, however a few examples of notebooks used in large-scale production pipelines such as those at [Netflix](https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/notebook-innovation-591ee3221233).  

## Jupyter Notebooks + Gradient

Notebooks are a core component of the Gradient platform.  Gradient offers a one-click Jupyter Notebook environment that is fully compatible with any existing Notebook and runs on a wide range of instances without any infrastructure management.  

There is a [free GPU and CPU instance available for Jupyter Notebooks](https://gradient.paperspace.com/free-gpu) which makes them very popular in the research community.  Learn more [here](https://gradient.paperspace.com/free-gpu).  

Notebooks can easily be shared publicly to collaborate on ML projects like GitHub repositories.  The [ML Showcase](https://ml-showcase.paperspace.com/) is a curated list of Jupyter Notebook-based projects that can be easily forked and edited.  

Gradient supports both Jupyter Lab (the newest version) and Jupyter Notebooks (the older version).