Built with Streamlit 
Hey Streamlit community!
I wanted to share something I’ve been working on and give a huge thanks to the Streamlit team for open-sourcing this amazing platform.
– OpenFieldbook – is a data visualization app.
When I first started coding–around 2010–Streamlit didn’t exist (and if it did, it certainly didn’t exist in the same environment it does today). To get an app live on-the-web with basic functionality required thousands of development hours and a hefty technical cost. At a minimum. Design required thousands more hours.
Back then, I was involved with a company that didn’t financially survive the tech development upstart. I don’t know what the statistics are, but I’d imagine that more businesses fail for this reason than you’d expect.
No longer is that the case. Streamlit, as well as other open-source packages and technological advancements through time, paved the way for the eventual “1-person, billion dollar startup.” A future I look forward to; and I know it’s in you with a bit of persistence:
- Rapid prototyping: From idea to working prototype in hours
- Python-native: No need to context-switch between languages
- Beautiful by default: Professional-looking apps without wrestling with CSS
- Community: Amazing ecosystem and helpful community like this one
Homepage: https://openfieldbook.com
At times I’ve struggled with the limitations of using a third-party platform; but, I think it has led to ingenuity and, importantly, necessary simplicity. I’d love to discuss all of the outside-the-box tips and tricks I’ve learned along the way, but I feel my time is running short for this post.
If you demo the site and find a technique you’d like to understand more about, please send me the question about it.
I currently host on AWS using five or six services; costing under $200 per mo. (I know this may sound like a lot for some–and I probably purchased more EC2 compute than was necessary for development purposes–but as I’ve struggled through this process, I see the potential for that cost to scale efficiently with thoughtful Streamlit development with data apps; cache_data and cache_resource and fragment are used liberally throughout my code and are great for saving on data transfer and database pings.)
My app consists of approximately 25,000 lines of code for reference; exclusive of all third-party modules (e.g. Streamlit, pandas, etc).
Demo
OpenFieldbook started as an investment portfolio dashboard–still is–and now I’m in the last phase of integrating core A/I capabilities.
Here, you can access a live, no-registration demo. This demo doesn’t really display all Streamlit is capable of, but it’s what I have available outside of a login screen.
The whole website was built with Streamlit as the front-end interpreter and server. I encourage you to give the A/I deep dive a try on the homepage (note: this is business / investment focused output).
Streamlit will notice that I keep removing their logo implementation–which I don’t like, but I understand the intention to brand their work. In exchange for removing it, I’ve included a link back to their site on the footer of my OpenFieldbook inside of the login. (Streamlit Team, please don’t make it any more difficult to remove in the future!)
Thank You, Streamlit Team! 
I’m incredibly grateful that Streamlit is open-source under the Apache 2.0 license. The fact that you’ve made such a powerful tool freely available to developers worldwide is genuinely inspiring. The ease of development, the thoughtful API design, and the vibrant ecosystem you’ve fostered have made building OpenFieldbook a joy rather than a chore.
Giving Back: Lessons Learned & Code Insights 
I’d love to help you out if I can–it’s owed as reciprocity at the very least. Over the next week or so, I’ll monitor this post for any questions you may have; preferably about specific “how-to’s”.
Fuel for thought: from my perspective the initial possibilities for A/I are great, but they’re not everything. The ‘A/I wrapper’ is just as, if not more, important than the LLM’s raw output.
That is, what can you do with the A/I that others aren’t or can’t? How is your app unique relative to the (practically unlimited) free queries offered by all of the big name A/I services? I suggest much value is added in the curation and maintenance of data and content–precisely what Streamlit was built for.
I hope OpenFieldbook can inspire your next level of development.
Since you’re reading this, we probably share common interests–AND–I can’t do this alone forever! Perhaps there’s an opportunity for us to develop together. Please reach out if this is you! Or if you know someone.
And if none of that applies but the app provides you value, I’m happy to have you as a subscriber instead.
Would love to hear your thoughts and feedback!
Thanks again to the entire Streamlit team and community! 