Observable is an amazing tool, some of the differences: * Observable has quite some magic, it's not just Javascript (there is a compile step to make it possibl

Observable is an amazing tool, some of the differences: * Observable has quite some magic, it's not just Javascript (there is a compile step to make it possible, see the other comment). With Starboard the plan is to make it trivial to export as a static website, in the end Starboard is just away to make a simple website without too much magic that you can instantly share. * The reactive system they have there is powerful, sometimes probably a bit too powerful. Starboard is just plain javascript (for better or for worse). You can run cells out of order and have complete freedom. Any restrictions on the order that cells should be executed and re-evaluated will have to come from external plugins. * Observable is a walled garden, you can't export the notebooks into say a text file and use it independently (as far as I know). They own the ecosystem and you can't really move away from it (and fair enough, it's a commercial product!). Starboard notebook is fully open source and it is built with customization, vanilla-ness and portability as main features.