Side by side

Trinket vs Whole Tale

Both stand on coding playgrounds. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.

Trinket

Free plan Self-hostedWeb

Trinket combines browser coding, classroom course creation, sharing, and educator tracking in one free service. Its web and open-source self-hosted options give schools different operating choices, while privacy and account controls address school use.

Visit Trinket

Whole Tale

Free plan APISelf-hostedWeb

Whole Tale brings data, code, environments, and research narrative into reusable Tales. Its repository workflows, recorded runs, and environment choices support review and reproduction, while usage and academic licensing limits should be checked first.

Visit Whole Tale

The facts

	Trinket	Whole Tale
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Open source	Not published	Not published
Runs on	Self-hosted, Web	API, Self-hosted, Web
Lowest paid plan	Free or on request	Not published
Plans published	2	None
Maker	Trinket	Whole Tale
Website	trinket.strivemath.org	wholetale.org
On coding playgrounds	#74 of 138	#70 of 138

Trinket: what it does well

Runs Python, HTML, Java, and other code in-browser
Teachers can create interactive lessons and courses
Student progress tracking is included
Open-source self-hosted option available
All features are free with no paid plans

What to know first

No free trial is offered
Self-hosting requires operating an independent copy
Support response is aimed within 24 hours

Whole Tale: what it does well

Free and open source
Supports JupyterLab, RStudio, MATLAB, and STATA
Records isolated runs and runtime details
Publishes Tales to research repositories
Read or edit sharing permissions

What to know first

Only two interactive environments run concurrently
Each Tale defaults to 2 CPUs and 8GB RAM
Hosted Jetstream2 version is for academic use
MATLAB use is academic-only

Alternatives to Trinket Alternatives to Whole Tale The whole list