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Franchise – An Open-Source SQL Notebook

franchise.cloud

21–30 of 64 posts

Re: Franchise – An Open-Source SQL Notebook

#21

Co-creator here! We wanted * A simple, flexible SQL client * A notebook interface that lets you drag stuff around and view things side-by-side * Query CSVs, JSON, and XLSX documents fully in-browser with Emscripten + SQLite * Postgres, MySQL and BigQuery through a local connection bridge. Your data never touches a third party server. I’ll be here with @antimatter15 for the rest of the morning answering questions!

Hi, Any plan to support jdbc so that it’s possible to connect to things such is HiveServer2/SparkSql?

same here - actually, today we use zeppelin, which is kind of a pain to setup on a cluster.

I see that you are using Reactjs. If you can build something that can connect to spark and python, I will pay for this and so will lots of people.

One of the big unsolved issues where we want to really throw money is have a notebook that my analysts can work on and then I can take straight to production and have it run multi-user.

There are lots of startups attempting to do this on top of Jupyter, but I believe building this from scratch is the right way.

I'm literally crying right now for a reactjs + d3js dashboard running on pyspark that multiple people can use simultaneously.

Re: Franchise – An Open-Source SQL Notebook

#23

Co-creator here! We wanted * A simple, flexible SQL client * A notebook interface that lets you drag stuff around and view things side-by-side * Query CSVs, JSON, and XLSX documents fully in-browser with Emscripten + SQLite * Postgres, MySQL and BigQuery through a local connection bridge. Your data never touches a third party server. I’ll be here with @antimatter15 for the rest of the morning answering questions!

Hi, Any plan to support jdbc so that it’s possible to connect to things such is HiveServer2/SparkSql?

We're hoping to add support, ideally with the help of the open source community! You can follow along at https://github.com/HVF/franchise/issues/5

Re: Franchise – An Open-Source SQL Notebook

#24
post #12

This looks really cool! I've been meaning to learn SQL for a long time, but I'm unfortunately in an unrelated field. Could anyone recommend some resources for learning SQL? Preferable targeted towards an experienced programmer

https://sqlschool.modeanalytics.com/toc/

Re: Franchise – An Open-Source SQL Notebook

#25
post #9

How is it different from SQL support in Jupyter notebook?

Co-creator here.

For existing SQL tools there's currently basically two approaches: where either the full application is hosted, or where the full application is local.

Jupyter and Zeppelin generally fall into the second category— you have to set up Docker (or the myriad of dependencies), and edit a bunch of configuration files to launch a local server before getting started. If someone sends you a notebook, and you just want to read its contents and see the interactive charts, you still have to go through this ordeal.

On the other hand, there's Mode, Redash, and PopSQL, which are hosted solutions. Editing configuration files is replaced with a one-time setup and registration, but you have to entrust these startups with access to all your data.

Franchise takes a hybrid approach— it's a hosted static web page that contains all of the display logic, so if you save a notebook and share it with a friend, you can open it and it just works. To connect to a database, you start a local bridge which tunnels data from Franchise directly to your database through your computer.

We spent a lot of time thinking about the interface and trying to make it easy to use, but still powerful. We built a new notebook layout engine that allows you to run two queries and see the results side-by-side. Deleting a cell sends it to an archive, so you don't have to worry about losing data. Data visualizations are accessible with one click. And if you're just trying to query data on a CSV or JSON file, you can just drag and drop it onto the page.

Re: Franchise – An Open-Source SQL Notebook

#26

Co-creator here! We wanted * A simple, flexible SQL client * A notebook interface that lets you drag stuff around and view things side-by-side * Query CSVs, JSON, and XLSX documents fully in-browser with Emscripten + SQLite * Postgres, MySQL and BigQuery through a local connection bridge. Your data never touches a third party server. I’ll be here with @antimatter15 for the rest of the morning answering questions!

This is really cool :) I nearly worked on such a project myself, out of frustration for simple solutions. I've seen similar things recently with SQL Notebook, Zeppelin, Jupyter, Flyspeed SQL query.. and more complex desktop apps like Tableau, QlikView, etc. I kept thinking to myself... why isn't there just a lighter weight query only tool. It helps people to learn, it's a handy utility, it helps you just use SQL as a utility for quick tasks using a UI - very nice.

A few questions/comments:

- Are you planning to put this in an Electron app? I think the more you can make it feel like an actual desktop app, the more likely you are to get more "regular" users. Just my opinion.

- While I love the simplicity of making this sound like a cloud service, I think that the nature of it being provided through the user's own infrastructure should be emphasized even more. As far as I can tell (and I haven't looked extensively), there is nothing that is actually "cloud oriented" about your service. Is it because people make there own "cloud" out of your bridge adapter? For people who want these tools on-premise and under their own control, you have a solution.

Re: Franchise – An Open-Source SQL Notebook

#27
Tried running it locally and it's one of the most pleasant experiences I've had in recent memory. Extremely short number of steps and no hiccups. I already had something running on port 3000 and it even had a Y/N flag asking me if I wanted to run it on a different port ... I was like wow!

Great job OP and I'll be sure to try this out as we are having lots of difficulties managing data at my workplace.

Re: Franchise – An Open-Source SQL Notebook

#28

Tried running it locally and it's one of the most pleasant experiences I've had in recent memory. Extremely short number of steps and no hiccups. I already had something running on port 3000 and it even had a Y/N flag asking me if I wanted to run it on a different port ... I was like wow! Great job OP and I'll be sure to try this out as we are having lots of difficulties managing data at my workplace.

"Restore from the most recent autosave" ... wow! You guys really went the distance to make Franchise user friendly.

Re: Franchise – An Open-Source SQL Notebook

#29
post #9

How is it different from SQL support in Jupyter notebook?

Co-creator here. For existing SQL tools there's currently basically two approaches: where either the full application is hosted, or where the full application is local. Jupyter and Zeppelin generally fall into the second category— you have to set up Docker (or the myriad of dependencies), and edit a bunch of configuration files to launch a local server before getting started. If someone sends you a notebook, and you…

Redash creator here.

One correction about Redash: Redash is open source and you can host it yourself too, in case you have an issue trusting a 3rd party with your data.

The proxy approach is something I thought about several times, but I am aiming at providing a collaborative tool, where it's easy to share the results and work with others. Depending on a proxy running on a user machine breaks this.

But having said that, I'm sure there are many whose needs Franchise will fit very well. So kudos on launching a great tool! :)

Re: Franchise – An Open-Source SQL Notebook

#30

Co-creator here! We wanted * A simple, flexible SQL client * A notebook interface that lets you drag stuff around and view things side-by-side * Query CSVs, JSON, and XLSX documents fully in-browser with Emscripten + SQLite * Postgres, MySQL and BigQuery through a local connection bridge. Your data never touches a third party server. I’ll be here with @antimatter15 for the rest of the morning answering questions!

This is really cool :) I nearly worked on such a project myself, out of frustration for simple solutions. I've seen similar things recently with SQL Notebook, Zeppelin, Jupyter, Flyspeed SQL query.. and more complex desktop apps like Tableau, QlikView, etc. I kept thinking to myself... why isn't there just a lighter weight query only tool. It helps people to learn, it's a handy utility, it helps you just use SQL as a…

We've got an Electron app in the works. Check out the Github repo if you're interested in helping out!

Yeah the domain name is pretty much a complete misnomer (it was a cheap gTLD :/).

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