#205: Building reactive Python notebooks with Marimo

Pybites Podcast

Marimo is redefining what a Python notebook can do—bringing structure, version control, and interactivity together. In this episode, we chat with Akshay Agrawal, co-founder and CEO of Marimo, about how their reactive Python notebook fixes hidden state, keeps outputs in sync, and makes reproducible, reviewable code the norm.

Akshay shares Marimo’s origin story, how its reactive DAG turns notebooks into clean, Git-friendly tools, and why teams are ditching Jupyter-to-Streamlit pipelines for simpler, reactive workflows. We also dive into performance, data handling with pandas/Polars via Narwhals, and SQL reactivity with DuckDB.

Join us in this insightful episode as we talk with Akshay about reproducibility, data workflows, and turning prototypes into shareable apps.

For more info on Marimo, reach out to Akshay:

Website: https://www.akshayagrawal.com/

Github: https://github.com/akshayka

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akshayka/

X: https://x.com/akshaykagrawal

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Hoofdstukken

1. Welcome And Guest Introduction (00:00:00)

2. What Is Marimo And Why It Exists (00:01:19)

3. Win Of The Week: Restaurant Dashboards (00:02:39)

4. Origins And Pain Points With Jupyter (00:04:27)

5. Reactive DAG And Execution Model (00:08:20)

6. File Format: Pure Python, Git Friendly (00:12:15)

7. Data Frames, Narwhals And DuckDB (00:16:20)

8. Adoption, Use Cases And Switching (00:19:55)

9. AI Features, Copilot And Claude Code (00:23:55)

10. Open Source Model And Commercial Focus (00:27:10)

11. Lessons From TensorFlow And CVXPy (00:29:30)

12. Molab, Roadmap And VS Code (00:32:10)

13. Books, Links And Closing (00:35:00)