Performance

Cache computations with @functools.cache

Use Python’s builtin functools library to cache expensive computations.

For example,

import functools

@functools.cache
def compute_predictions(problem_parameters):
 ...

Whenever compute_predictions is called with a value of problem_parameters it has not seen, it will compute the predictions and store them in a cache. The next time it is called with the same parameters, instead of recomputing the predictions, it will return the previously computed value from the cache.

Disable expensive cells

marimo lets you temporarily disable cells from automatically running. This is helpful when you want to edit one part of a notebook without triggering execution of other parts. See the reactivity guide for more info.

Lazy-load expensive elements or computations

You can lazily render UI elements that are expensive to compute using marimo.lazy.

For example,

import marimo as mo

data = db.query("SELECT * FROM data")
mo.lazy(mo.ui.table(data))

In this example, mo.ui.table(data) will not be rendered on the frontend until is it in the viewport. For example, an element can be out of the viewport due to scroll, inside a tab that is not selected, or inside an accordion that is not open.

However, in this example, data is eagerly computed, while only the rendering of the table is lazy. It is possible to lazily compute the data as well: see the next example.

import marimo as mo

def expensive_component():
    import time
    time.sleep(1)
    data = db.query("SELECT * FROM data")
    return mo.ui.table(data)

accordion = mo.ui.accordion({
    "Charts": mo.lazy(expensive_component)
})

In this example, we pass a function to mo.lazy instead of a component. This function will only be called when the user opens the accordion. In this way, expensive_component lazily computed and we only query the database when the user needs to see the data. This can be useful when the data is expensive to compute and the user may not need to see it immediately.