I quite like Dash framework as it is easy to develop and maintain.
When I look online, lot of “review” talk about Dash for “internal” solution, “only for MVP” or even “low level”, and I find it a bit “odd”. I have limited experience in deployment (I’m mostly from a scientific background) but what I have seen so far and the few app I did myself do not seem to be “limited” compared to other framework.
Am I missing something? Would it be an issue (technical) for a startup (engineering focus) to use Dash for example.
In which condition did you find Dash too restricted and needed to move to another framework? and would Dash Enterprise solve this problem?
I did looked on this forum and other for some information, but the few I found do not reflect my own experience, yet it’s not my expertise. Not sure if I am stupid or many people do not use Dash correctly?
I used it for a few years. Didn’t find any constraints, its flexible, easy to code/deploy, and the community is growing fast. At the time I started using it, it has basic stuff but now it has a lot more new features, such as dash mantine components, ag grid table, etc, which are huge value add.
A few things I think it could be useful, but may be only available in enterprise is:
The snapshot feature to send the whole page, or a component in email or save down as PDF.
The drag and drop feature.
Maybe a component to present the flow chart. ( There maybe one already. )
I didn’t have a lot experiences in UI, but sometimes find the error “Page Unresponsive” not possible to debug and understand why.
Last thing I want to point out, which is very useful, is this community forum is very very helpful. I can hardly find any forum with timely support, good/helpful answers and a friendly environment.
@VVlad While the majority of our (enterprise) customers leverage Dash for internal purposes … they will use it for production-grade (vs MVP/prototype) data app (vs "dashboard) purposes
Further, we also see use for such for external-customer-facing apps (e.g. embedded into an existing SaaS/website as the analytical workflow component). Some examples can be found per:
I will also tag on that I am building a system that is using Dash in a operational manner, not just for dashboards. This is for both internal and external.
Integrating access control for Dash apps is one condition that’s improved since I began using Dash. But as with any framework or deployment, if you imagine needing any form of secure login to an app, definitely consider what your access requirements are early in your planning. If you need to integrate with single sign-on, some kind of enterprise-wide security protocol, or if you need to manage flows tied to specific users, all that can be done, but, depending on your needs and budget, that’s where running more than just Dash modules may be required. I may be overly focused on this area as in a former life I managed data security in a hospital–tough crowd!
Would Dash Enterprise solve this problem? The docs include authentication options now for both open source and enterprise. You get more out of the box with Enterprise, of course! But, beyond those instructions, you can use Dash together with utility libraries in the Python ecosystem that work well with Flask, which Dash builds upon.
Your options will largely depend on what your unique company needs are for apps. If it’s public-facing or you don’t care who sees your app, you can also just stick an iframe on your website, as you probably know.
@entropy_l Agree on the forum, I saw much more positive exchange here compare to other platform!
@DaveG I have looked at the Dash 500, but a lot of example are from academic group it seems, on the other hand Plotly seems to have a lot of big company as enterprise customer. This raise a question about the “in between” like a startup who try to develop a technical solution a bit more commercial focus compare to academic but not the resources of a big company. I did try to contact the sale for enterprise and it wasn’t a good experience (guess I’m too small fish?), hence my queries!
@jinnyzor Looking forward to see it, “B2B Saas” is the kind of stuff I’m looking after, I would be happy to test it out or help if I can. I was just looking at your contribution on the flask-login piece.
@kmhurchla the security is perhaps the most questionable part on my end. Most dash app I have seen are mvp or public, so on the paper it looks less “commercial” than something like PowerBI, but as you mentioned there are many option to add security features on the app. It might be interesting to see pros and cons on the different authentication approaches. My sector is a bit less security oriented compare to hospital, but they can be paranoid on thing they don’t know!
a) wrt PD500 → Indeed lots of example from academics → they like to share their stuff … Corporations though → not so much … so lot harder to get them to show / tell what they are up to with Dash. Although a map view of use of dash.plotly.com documentation shows it’s super popular (33K+ orgs in the past 3mo have hit the docs … that we know of).
b) wrt startups
Lots of open-source use of Dash there … admittedly our enterprise offering - which carries a minimum 5 figure USD/yr investment - is geared more towards the larger enterprise w lots of python users who want to leverage Dash (e.g. data science teams/quant teams / computational biologists / etc.) for advanced analytics workflows, but per the link I sent there are startups/orgs who leverage Dash and Dash Enterprise for external end-user use (e.g. as part of a SaaS offering, or as part of some external deliverables).
Happy to discuss further → my work email is dave@plot.ly
