Machine Learning & Data Science · head to head
Orange vs Dask
Orange
Machine Learning & Data Science
Data mining and visualization toolkit
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Orange orange is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3, so distributing modified or derived software requires releasing the source under the GPL; Dask each Dask task carries between 200 microseconds and 1 millisecond of scheduler overhead, so graphs of millions of tasks add 10 minutes to hours of pure overhead
- They diverge on capability: Orange covers Visual programming, Dask covers Parallel computing.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Orange and Dask actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (open-source), free tier (Yes), platforms (Linux, Mac, Windows), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Machine Learning & Data Science).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Orange
- Visual programming
- Data visualization
- Machine learning
- Text mining
- Bioinformatics
- Python
- PyQt
Only in Dask
- Parallel computing
- Distributed DataFrames
- Lazy evaluation
- Dynamic task scheduling
- Dashboard
- NumPy
- Pandas
- XGBoost
Both cover
- scikit-learn
- Linux support
- Mac support
- Windows support
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Orange
- Visual programming for data mining and machine learning workflowsnot Dask
- Teaching data science without writing codenot Dask
- Exploratory data visualisation and clustering on tabular datanot Dask
Dask
- Scaling pandas and NumPy workloads beyond a single machine's memorynot Orange
- Parallelising custom Python task graphsnot Orange
- Processing larger than memory arrays and dataframes on a clusternot Orange
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Orange
- Orange is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3, so distributing modified or derived software requires releasing the source under the GPL
- The widgets and canvas are built on Qt, which is itself distributed under GPL 3.0
- Orange add-ons may carry additional licensing requirements set in their own licence files
- Documentation and website content are under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike, which imposes an attribution and share-alike obligation on reuse
- The software is distributed without any warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose
Dask
- Each Dask task carries between 200 microseconds and 1 millisecond of scheduler overhead, so graphs of millions of tasks add 10 minutes to hours of pure overhead
- Partition sizing is left to the user: chunks must fit several times over in worker memory, and both oversized and undersized chunks are documented failure modes
- Embedding large locally created DataFrames or Arrays into a Dask computation is documented as a practice to avoid because of network overhead
- Calling compute repeatedly in a loop rather than batching prevents parallelisation of queries
- The documentation itself advises trying better algorithms, file formats or sampling before adopting Dask
Pricing, plan by plan
Orange
Free- Open SourceFree
- Visual programming
- Machine learning
- Data visualization
Dask
Free- Open SourceFree
- Parallel computing
- Distributed DataFrames
- ML integration
Which should you pick?
Choose Orange if
- You need visual programming.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Linux, Mac, Windows.
- You also want data visualization.
Choose Dask if
- You need parallel computing.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Linux, Mac, Windows.
- You also want distributed dataframes.
Questions people ask
- Is Orange or Dask better?
- Neither clearly leads. Orange starts at Free and Dask at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Orange or Dask?
- Orange starts at Free and Dask at Free.
- Does Orange or Dask run on more platforms?
- Both run on Linux, Mac, Windows, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
- Can I use Orange for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Orange best used for?
- Orange is most often used for visual programming for data mining and machine learning workflows, teaching data science without writing code, exploratory data visualisation and clustering on tabular data. Of those, visual programming for data mining and machine learning workflows and teaching data science without writing code are not what Dask is typically brought in for.
- What can Orange do that Dask cannot?
- Orange covers Visual programming, Data visualization, Machine learning, Text mining. Dask covers Parallel computing, Distributed DataFrames, Lazy evaluation, Dynamic task scheduling. Both handle scikit-learn, Linux support, Mac support, Windows support.