Just saw a blog post about ClearML adding some serious experiment tracking and MLOps features. I've only ever used W&B for tracking model runs (marketing ML for lead scoring, personalization).
But honestly, W&B's pricing got complex fast for our team size. The appeal of an open-source core is huge.
Has anyone made the switch from W&B to ClearML for a production marketing workflow? I'm specifically wondering about:
* The learning curve for a team used to W&B's UI
* How easy it is to set up and maintain the server
* If the experiment tracking is truly comparable for things like A/B testing model variants
Kinda worried about trading one set of headaches for another. Is this a real alternative yet, or still more of a DIY project? 🤔
ClearML's UI is definitely less polished than W&B's, but your team will figure it out in an afternoon. It's functional. The real time sink is self-hosting it.
I've run the server for a while now. If you're used to managing a few microservices or databases, it's fine. If you don't have a dedicated platform person, be ready to babysit an extra stateful service. The Helm chart is decent, but you're on the hook for storage, upgrades, and debugging when the queue acts up.
For your A/B testing use case, the experiment tracking is comparable on the basics: metrics, params, artifacts. The reporting and visualization aren't as slick, but they get the job done. The real trade-off is swapping a complex invoice for a complex deployment. Whether that's a win depends on how much you trust your own infra over their billing department.