When to use The Littlest JupyterHub#

This page is a brief guide to determining whether to use The Littlest JupyterHub (TLJH) or Zero to JupyterHub for Kubernetes (Z2JH). Many of these ideas were first laid out in a blog post announcing TLJH.

**The Littlest JupyterHub (TLJH)** is an opinionated and pre-configured distribution to deploy a JupyterHub on a single machine (in the cloud or on your own hardware). It is designed to be a more lightweight and maintainable solution for use-cases where size, scalability, and cost-savings are not a huge concern.

**Zero to JupyterHub on Kubernetes** allows you to deploy JupyterHub on Kubernetes. This allows JupyterHub to scale to many thousands of users, to flexibly grow/shrink the size of resources it needs, and to use container technology in administering user sessions.

When to use TLJH vs. Z2JH#

The choice between TLJH and Z2JH ultimately comes down to only a few questions:

  1. Do you want your hub and all users to live on a single, larger machine vs. spreading users on a cluster of smaller machines that are scaled up or down?

    • If you can use a single machine, we recommend The Littlest JupyterHub.

    • If you wish to use multiple machines, we recommend Zero to JupyterHub for Kubernetes.

  2. Do you need to use container technology?

    • If no, we recommend The Littlest JupyterHub.

    • If yes, we recommend Zero to JupyterHub for Kubernetes.