What is Pretzel used for?

Pretzel is a free, open-source fork of Jupyter that adds AI code generation, inline completion, sidebar chat and error fixing, positioned as a modern Jupyter replacement. It is a good fit for AI-assisted data analysis notebooks and upgrading an existing Jupyter workflow with AI features.

Is Pretzel open source?

Yes. Pretzel is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at pretzelai/pretzelai and is written mainly in TypeScript.

Yes. Pretzel is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence. A managed cloud version is also available.

Can I self-host Pretzel?

Yes. Pretzel can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Pretzel an alternative to?

Pretzel is an open-source alternative to Hex and Julius AI. Other open-source alternatives to Hex include Briefer, Marimo and JupyterLab.

Is Pretzel actively maintained?

The most recent commit to Pretzel was on 1 December 2024, and the latest release is v4.2.11, published on 29 August 2024. The project has 2.2k stars on GitHub.

Pretzel: open-source alternative to Hex, Julius AI

About Pretzel

Pretzel is a fork of Jupyter aimed at data scientists and analysts who want the familiar notebook experience enhanced with AI assistance. Because it is built directly on Jupyter, existing configuration, settings, keybindings and extensions carry over automatically when switching from plain Jupyter.

On top of standard notebooks, Pretzel adds inline tab completion as you type in a cell, an 'Ask AI' prompt triggered from a cell or a keyboard shortcut, and an AI sidebar for chatting, generating code and asking questions, with an @ trigger for autocompleting function and variable names. Users can bring their own model from OpenAI, Anthropic/Claude, Ollama or Groq. The project's roadmap includes native AI code generation similar to Cursor, realtime collaboration features, SQL support inside notebooks, a visual analysis builder, and one-click dashboard creation from notebooks.

Pretzel is written in TypeScript and installed with pip, after which the pretzel lab command opens the web interface; a free hosted version is also available at pretzelai.app. The repository metadata lists its license as Other, so check the license file for exact terms.

Key features

AI code generation and inline completion
AI sidebar chat for code and questions
Compatible with existing Jupyter config and extensions
Bring-your-own-model support (OpenAI, Claude, Ollama, Groq)
Planned SQL and dashboard-building support

Good fit for

→AI-assisted data analysis notebooks
→Upgrading an existing Jupyter workflow with AI features

Built with: TypeScript
Tags: jupyter-alternative; notebooks; ai-coding; data-science; self-hosted; typescript; sql

Pretzel: questions and answers

What is Pretzel used for?: Pretzel is a free, open-source fork of Jupyter that adds AI code generation, inline completion, sidebar chat and error fixing, positioned as a modern Jupyter replacement. It is a good fit for AI-assisted data analysis notebooks and upgrading an existing Jupyter workflow with AI features.
Is Pretzel open source?: Yes. Pretzel is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at pretzelai/pretzelai and is written mainly in TypeScript.
Is Pretzel free?: Yes. Pretzel is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence. A managed cloud version is also available.
Can I self-host Pretzel?: Yes. Pretzel can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Pretzel an alternative to?: Pretzel is an open-source alternative to Hex and Julius AI. Other open-source alternatives to Hex include Briefer, Marimo and JupyterLab.
Is Pretzel actively maintained?: The most recent commit to Pretzel was on 1 December 2024, and the latest release is v4.2.11, published on 29 August 2024. The project has 2.2k stars on GitHub.