Open-source, browser-local data exploration tool
Published:Mar 15, 2024 16:02
•1 min read
•Hacker News
Analysis
This Hacker News post introduces Pretzel, an open-source data exploration and visualization tool that operates entirely within the browser. It leverages DuckDB-WASM and PRQL for data processing, offering a reactive interface where changes to filters automatically update subsequent data transformations. The tool supports large CSV and XLSX files, emphasizing its ability to handle sensitive data due to its offline capabilities. The post highlights key features like data transformation blocks, filtering, pivoting, and plotting, along with links to a demo and a screenshot. The use of DuckDB-WASM and PRQL is a key technical aspect, enabling in-browser data processing.
Key Takeaways
- •Pretzel is an open-source, browser-based data exploration tool.
- •It uses DuckDB-WASM and PRQL for in-browser data processing.
- •Supports large CSV/XLSX files and offers a reactive interface.
- •Allows for offline use, enabling the handling of sensitive data.
Reference
“We’ve built Pretzel, an open-source data exploration and visualization tool that runs fully in the browser and can handle large files (200 MB CSV on my 8gb MacBook air is snappy). It’s also reactive - so if, for example, you change a filter, all the data transform blocks after it re-evaluate automatically.”