What is the difference between local runtime and hosted runtime in Google Colab?

google-colaboratory
Asma Rahim Ali Jafri picture Asma Rahim Ali Jafri · Dec 22, 2018 · Viewed 11.5k times · Source

I I just started using Google Colab for a project of mine. I see an button of "CONNECT" on the web page that presents before me two options:

  1. Connect to Hosted Runtime
  2. Connect to Local Runtime

Can anyone explain what the two mean and how it may affect my project? I did not find any useful documentation related to it.

Answer

korakot picture korakot · Dec 23, 2018

Hosted Runtime runs on a new machine instance in Google Cloud. You don't need to set-up any hardware. But you may need to install a few libraries every time you use it.

Local Runtime runs on your machine at home. You need to install Python, Jupyter, and set-up some forwarding. It is useful if you have a lot of data to process locally, or if you have your own powerful GPU to use.

In most cases, I use Hosted Runtime.

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