What are the best client side JavaScript charting libraries?

Question

15

Options
Considered

95

User
Recs.

May 15, 2020

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

15 Options Considered

Best client side JavaScript charting libraries	Price	Last Updated
-- Chart.js	-	May 15, 2020
-- D3.js	-	Mar 4, 2020
-- Highcharts	-	Jan 27, 2020
-- CanvasJS Charts	-	Feb 16, 2020
-- AnyChart	-	Aug 3, 2017

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score 20 · Answer 1

Chart.js

Top Pro

Lightweight and fast

The library contains a set of 6 charts and is 11Kb gzipped, this makes its loading time and page impact low. See More

Top Con

Canvas based

Canvas it bitmap based and shares the same issues as non-vector formats. See More

GutsyAsteria's Experience

Very easy to use See More

Top Pro

Free/libre/open-source

Top Con

Limited features

Chart.js currently offers only 6 graph types, and lacks the flexibility offered by other options. For example, controlling the display of tooltips is fairly limited. See More

Top Pro

Responsive charts

The charts are fully responsive, meaning they resize based on the viewport width. See More

Top Pro

Clear documentation

The chart.js documentation is well organized and provides detailed information on using each feature. See More

See All

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score 12 · Answer 2

D3.js

Top Pro

Extremely powerful

Since D3.js is quite low level, it can generate a huge set of different visualizations. You can find various examples here. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve

The complexity and flexibility of D3.js results in it being a time-consuming tool to learn for many users. D3 is incredibly flexible; probably more so than any other JavaScript visualization library at the time of this posting. With that flexibility comes increased complexity. If you just want to create some quick charts you will get results faster with something else. See More

Anthony Mayfield's Experience

Multiple versions, examples don't work Most of the examples for this library are for v3.x but they're already on x5.x and the docs are horrible, would avoid this library See More

Top Pro

Backwards compatible

D3.js is intended for modern browsers, so supports IE9 and above (IE8 with an additional library) as well as all the other modern browsers. See More

Top Pro

Large community

D3.js is a very popular tool with an active community, resulting in plenty of learning resources and fast responses to questions. See More

Top Pro

Huge number of examples online

Most of the examples provided are by the author, but there's also a great community writing plugins and more examples. See More

Top Pro

Doesn't require a proprietary framework

D3's emphasis on web standards gives you the full capabilities of modern browsers without tying yourself to a proprietary framework. See More

Top Pro

Open source

See All

score 10 · Answer 3

Highcharts

Top Pro

Large and active community

Highcharts has a large and supportive community, resulting in a fast response from both stack overflow and the Highcharts forum. See More

Top Con

Can be expensive

Highcharts is not free for commercial projects, with a starting price of $90/USD for use on one simple webpage and, up to $3,600 for maintenance and support. See More

DiligentThetis's Experience

2 See More

Top Pro

Excellent browser support

Highcharts supports all modern browsers (including IE6 and up), iOS and Android. See More

See All

score 4 · Answer 4

CanvasJS Charts

Top Con

Not free

Apparently no free Open Source Software version: https://canvasjs.com/license-canvasjs/ See More

Top Pro

High performance

Charts can render tens of thousands of data points without any performance issues. See More

Top Pro

Works across devices and browsers

Charts can render across devices including iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Phone, Desktops, etc. See More

Top Pro

Free for non-commercial use (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License)

Top Pro

Start-up friendly

Offers discounted pricing for start-ups and new companies. See More

Top Pro

Good commercial pricing

A single developer license for CanvasJS costs $299. See More

Top Pro

Supports 24 different chart types

Supports 24 different chart types including line, column, bar, spline, area, pie, doughnut, stock charts, etc. See More

See All

score 6 · Answer 5

AnyChart

Top Pro

A lot of supported chart types

Supports almost all chart types one could ever want. From the most common bar charts, area charts, and donut charts, to funnel charts, polar charts or Japanese Candlestick charts. See More

Top Con

It's not free

The prices start from $49 per product. See More

Top Pro

Multiple supported data formats

Supports the Javascript API, XML, JSON, CSV. See More

Top Pro

Extremely flexible and customizable

Any part of a chart can be changed and customized. See More

Top Pro

Each chart element responds to user actions

Events can be distributed to chart elements which respond to user actions. Event listeners are simple JavaScript functions which are very easy to use and understand. See More

Top Pro

Multiple plugins and integration templates are available

Plugins for AngularJS, Ember.js, jQuery, Meteor, Node.js, React: http://www.anychart.com/plugins Technical integration templates and samples for all popular programming languages, frameworks and libraries, and databases: http://www.anychart.com/integrations/ See More

Top Pro

Full cross-browser support

Supports all browsers, including IE6+ along with mobile browsers. See More

Top Pro

Open source

The open source code is hosted on GitHub under different licenses depending on the library. See More

Top Pro

No dependencies

No jQuery or other libraries required. See More

Top Pro

Long product history, experienced team

AnyChart has been operating from 2003 and the team is very experienced with a long history of releasing quality products. See More

Top Pro

Detailed documentation and API reference

The documentation and API reference are very detailed and everything is explained in detail in a simple and clear way. See More

See All

score 2 · Answer 6

gRaphaël

Top Con

Not actively developed

There has been no contributions on the github page for the last 3 years. Most issues go without any replies. See More

Top Pro

Works with older browsers

Because Raphael supports rendering VML + SVG, it is one of the few drawing libraries that is backwards compatible with older browsers that do not support canvas. gRaphaël supports IE 6+, Firefox 3.0+, Safari 3.0+, and Opera 9.5+. See More

score 1 · Answer 7

C3.js

Top Pro

Numerous chart options available

Built on d3 so you can leverage existing skills. See More

Top Con

Bad performance when running multiple charts on same page

Shlomi Asaf's Experience

Was great till I needed to place multiple charts on the same page. Page got stuck and got a big freezing till the charts got printed. See More

Top Pro

Legend out of the box

Top Pro

Easy rotation (swap X and Y), and inverting

Top Pro

Easy to configure and supports all basic charts

With legends and tooltips, gridlines, axis and tick label customization, etc. See More

See All

score 1 · Answer 8

ApexCharts

Add Video or Image

score 1 · Answer 9

Chartist.js

Top Pro

Offers fully responsive charts

Chartist offers responsive configuration with media queries, which not only resizes the chart but also provides different text and shapes. See More

Top Con

Animations only work in modern browsers

Animation support is somewhat limited, with IE not supported at all. See More

Top Pro

No dependencies

Chartist.js has no dependencies, keeping it lightweight and fast to configure. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight and fast

Chartist is lightweight at only 10KB, resulting in very little impact on load time. See More

See All

score 2 · Answer 10

Plotly

Top Pro

Many language bindings

R, Python, Julia, etc. See More

Top Pro

Good 3d plotting capabilities

Top Pro

Highly interactive by default

Top Pro

Large number of charts

Top Pro

Easy to customise the charts

See All

score 4 · Answer 11

ngx-charts

Top Pro

A lot of chart types

Top Pro

Supports the latest Angular

Top Pro

Open-source

Top Pro

Clear documentation

See All

score 1 · Answer 12

Recharts

Top Pro

Extensible

This is a fairly extensible library that allows you to add your own components See More

Top Con

Depends on ReactJS

This relies upon React.js so if you're not using React, this isn't really an option. See More

Top Pro

Beautiful

Charts made with Recharts look great. See More

Top Pro

Fast

Recharts renders quickly and smoothly. See More

See All

score 1 · Answer 13

Morris Chart

Top Pro

Easy usage

score 14 · Answer 14

ZingChart

Top Pro

Good support

Their support team is fast to respond and super helpful. See More

Top Con

The free version inserts a watermark on all charts

Either their watermark is on all the charts or you have to pay expensive license fees. See More

Top Pro

Looks Great!

Tons of styles to choose from! See More

Top Con

Proprietary

Top Pro

Tons of built-in features

Other libs just can't compete with the amount of built-in functionality ZC offers. Built-in tokenized logic rules Easy to use zooming/preview functionality available across the library Share legends, crosshairs, and zoom controls across charts See More

Top Con

Features can be hard to find

The documentation could be better. There are features of the lib that you might not know about unless you ask support. See More

Top Pro

Tons of styling options

You can get extremely granular with the styling (which is very CSS-like). You can customize pretty much any aspect of a chart, so they can match your application or website perfectly. See More

Top Pro

Provides more chart types

Top Pro

Robust API

Top Pro

Handles Large Data Sets

See All

score 1 · Answer 15

JSCharting

Top Pro

Huge suite of samples gives a jumping off point to save time for various projects

The various chart types are all included where other options sell separate products for stock, mapping and other advanced types. See More

15 Options Considered

My Recommendation for Chart.js

My Recommendation for Chart.js

Lightweight and fast

Canvas based

Free/libre/open-source

Limited features

Responsive charts

Clear documentation

My Recommendation for D3.js

My Recommendation for D3.js

Extremely powerful

Steep learning curve

Backwards compatible

Large community

Huge number of examples online

Doesn't require a proprietary framework

Open source

My Recommendation for Highcharts

My Recommendation for Highcharts

Large and active community

Can be expensive

Excellent browser support

My Recommendation for CanvasJS Charts

My Recommendation for CanvasJS Charts

Not free

High performance

Works across devices and browsers

Free for non-commercial use (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License)

Start-up friendly

Good commercial pricing

Supports 24 different chart types

My Recommendation for AnyChart

My Recommendation for AnyChart

A lot of supported chart types

It's not free

Multiple supported data formats

Extremely flexible and customizable

Each chart element responds to user actions

Multiple plugins and integration templates are available

Full cross-browser support

Open source

No dependencies

Long product history, experienced team

Detailed documentation and API reference

My Recommendation for gRaphaël

My Recommendation for gRaphaël

Not actively developed

Works with older browsers

My Recommendation for C3.js

My Recommendation for C3.js

Numerous chart options available

Bad performance when running multiple charts on same page

Legend out of the box

Easy rotation (swap X and Y), and inverting

Easy to configure and supports all basic charts

My Recommendation for ApexCharts

My Recommendation for ApexCharts

My Recommendation for Chartist.js

My Recommendation for Chartist.js

Offers fully responsive charts

Animations only work in modern browsers

No dependencies

Lightweight and fast

My Recommendation for Plotly

My Recommendation for Plotly

Many language bindings

Good 3d plotting capabilities

Highly interactive by default

Large number of charts

Easy to customise the charts

My Recommendation for ngx-charts

My Recommendation for ngx-charts

A lot of chart types

Supports the latest Angular

Open-source

Clear documentation

My Recommendation for Recharts

My Recommendation for Recharts

Extensible