Standalone Bokeh server or combine with Flask?

johnny · November 26, 2021, 2:37pm

Hi,

I’ve made a working integration of Bokeh into Flask using this example:

bokeh/bokeh/blob/0.12.14/examples/howto/server_embed/flask_gunicorn_embed.py

from flask import Flask, render_template

from tornado.httpserver import HTTPServer
from tornado.ioloop import IOLoop

from bokeh.application import Application
from bokeh.application.handlers import FunctionHandler
from bokeh.embed import server_document
from bokeh.layouts import column
from bokeh.models import ColumnDataSource, Slider
from bokeh.plotting import figure
from bokeh.server.server import BaseServer
from bokeh.server.tornado import BokehTornado
from bokeh.server.util import bind_sockets
from bokeh.themes import Theme

if __name__ == '__main__':
    print('This script is intended to be run with gunicorn. e.g.')
    print()
    print('    gunicorn -w 4 flask_gunicorn_embed:app')

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It works.

However after having studied the Bokeh user guide a bit more I am in doubt as to whether the Flask part is necessary at all.

What I want to do is create relatively simple, user specific dashboards available from the public internet. I will need some basic authentication and SSL-connection of course. As far as I can tell it is all possible using Bokeh and the underlying Tornado-server.

So my question really is if there is any obvious benefits from involving Flask also? My own initial thoughts were that it would be easier to use Flask for - amongst other things - authentication, templates and navigating between different URL’s in the web-app.

But my web-app is really a relatively simple dashboard, and I’m not even sure the app will have different URL’s. Thinking of just using a tabbed pane when and if necessary.

Any input would be much appreciated.

Bryan · November 27, 2021, 1:44am

If you don’t otherwise need Flask for anything, you can refer to tornado_embed.py or standalone_embed.py. However, my actual advice, based on your description is to use standard bokeh serve capability, which would be even simpler:

johnny · November 27, 2021, 4:30pm

Hi Bryan, thank you. Much appreciated. My most recent plan was actually to just use the bokeh serve-capability instead of the whole Flask-path I initially had started to venture down … I was just unsure whether I would lose critical functionality (authentication, SSL etc.) if I went with just Bokeh. It doesn’t seem like it, and I would be more than happy to just get rid of Flask for simplicity’s sake

Bryan · November 27, 2021, 10:38pm

Nope, definitely not, and if you need to “scale out” the bokeh serve case is typically also simpler (just run several instances behind a load balancer).

system · February 25, 2022, 10:39pm

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