Javascript: Charts, Graphs and Data Visualization for the Web
I was searching for some graphing, charting and data visualization libraries and I thought it might be helpful to share my finds and my favorite. Enjoy!
- D3 – Free, highly customizable and has lots of flexibility but it’s not something you can pick up quickly. Luckily they have lots of pre-made graphs that you can customize as need be.
- High Charts – Best looking, easiest to use and by far has the most features. The downside… it’s also the most expensive. A developer license will run you around $400 and an unlimited developer license is $3,600. They also have a stock ticker version. Nice stuff and my first choice if you can afford it.
- jqPlot – is the best freeware, open source library out there in my opinion. It allows you to customize the colors and axis labels and has support for bar, scatter, bubble, pie and area graphs. It’s not as easy to use but it will get the job done if need be.
- JSCharts -a JavaScript based chart generator that requires little or no coding. Just include our scripts, prepare your chart data in XML, JSON or JavaScript Array and your chart is ready. Free version watermarked. Paid versions range from $79 – $169 commercial license and $39 – $89 non-profit license.
- dygraphs – an open source JavaScript library that produces produces interactive, zoomable charts of time series. It is designed to display dense data sets and enable users to explore and interpret them.
- InfoVis – provides tools for creating Interactive Data Visualizations for the Web. Freeware.
- g.raphael – Raphaël is a small JavaScript library that should simplify your work with vector graphics on the web and G.Raphaël is specifically for charts. If you want to create your own specific chart or image crop and rotate widget, for example, you can achieve it simply and easily with this library. Very simplified js commands to create graphs and charts. Freeware.
- sigma – Web network visualization. Freeware. Lightweight JavaScript library to draw graphs, using the HTML canvas element. It has been especially designed to display interactively static graphs exported from a graph visualization software and display dynamically graphs that are generated on the fly.
- JSXGraph – JSXGraph is a cross-browser library for interactive geometry, function plotting, charting, and data visualization in a web browser. It is implemented completely in JavaScript, does not rely on any other library, and uses SVG, VML, or canvas. JSXGraph is easy to embed and is less than 100 KByte if embedded in a web page. Freeware.
- Bluff – Bluff is a JavaScript port of the Gruff graphing library for Ruby. It is designed to support all the features of Gruff with minimal dependencies; the only third-party scripts you need to run it are a copy. Freeware.
- Visualization Free – an easy-to-use, no software download Web-based charting and visualization application. Not for commercial use.
- Timeline – Interactive widget for visualizing temporal data. Freeware.
- PlotKit – a Chart and Graph Plotting Library for Javascript. It has support for HTML Canvas and also SVG via Adobe SVG Viewer and native browser support. PlotKit is a complete rewrite of CanvasGraph. It is better structured and supported. Freeware, requires MochiKit 13 or higher.
- Flot – JavaScript plotting library for jQuery, with a focus on simple usage, attractive looks and interactive features. Freeware.
- Sparklines – generates small inline charts directly in the browser using data supplied either inline in the HTML, or via javascript.
- MilkChart – This library will generate a graph similar to Microsoft Excel. Freeware.
- Canvas 3D Graph – this is the only 3D graphing software I could find. Freeware.
- TufteGraph – make graphs using jQuery. Configuration is by dynamic functions, allowing for a really compact API (very few options). Non-core layout is done via CSS rather than code. Freeware.
- MooChart – is a mooTools plugin to draw bubble graphs on the canvas.
- Protovis – Protovis composes custom views of data with bars and dots. Protovis defines marks through dynamic properties that encode data, allowing inheritance, scales and layouts to simplify construction. Freeware.
- Rickshaw – an open source javascript toolkit for creating interactive time series graphs
- Google Charts – not exactly perfect but sometimes the KIS (keep it simple) rule works best.
- Protochart – open source library using Prototype and Canvas to create good looking charts. This library is highly motivated by Flot, Flotr and PlotKit libraries.
Comprehensive list, nicely done.
Btw have you tried FusionCharts? We pride ourselves on our looks and comprehensiveness with over 90 chart types – http://www.fusioncharts.com