Ask HN: Best library for adding charts / graphs to your website?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5402386

by ep103 • 13 years ago

3 8 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

A different library seems to appear on HN every few weeks. Does anyone have good insight to the pros / cons or their favorite particular library?

ep103• 13 years ago

In my searches, Stack Overflow seems to lean towards d3.js

bink-lynch• 13 years ago

I am using http://raphaeljs.com/ for my current project, but http://d3js.org/ looks great, particularly http://nvd3.org/.

adamtaa• 13 years ago

Having asked this same exact question before my answers, as some have mentioned below, are RaphaelJs and JqPlot. That said I am also looking into D3 which is also mentioned below. RaphaelJs has a number of controls based on it such as JustGage animated gauges(not by me but I have used it), and JqPlot which is highly configurable and seems to "just work".

kaushikt• 13 years ago

d3 is amazing. There is no doubt about it. If you have a decent amount of time then perhaps you can start with this http://christopheviau.com/d3_tutorial/

A more simpler & easily configurable option is definitely RaphaelJS (http://raphaeljs.com/). Be sure to check out g.Raphael as well (http://g.raphaeljs.com/).

Other than this, i have previously worked with Rickshaw(http://code.shutterstock.com/rickshaw/) as well. Although, i found it incredibly easy to implement, i personally find it a little poorly documented and found less resources and difficult to modify and play around. With HTML5 canvas, be sure to check out the new ChartJS (http://www.chartjs.org/).

If in case, you are ready to shell out then HighCharts(http://www.highcharts.com/) and perhaps FusionCharts(http://www.fusioncharts.com/) are the way to go. Personally, i think i would go with Raphael.

OWaz• 13 years ago

Take a look at http://www.highcharts.com/ too. I used highcharts a few weeks ago for an project in my company and I found it pretty simple to use. D3 does look interesting but I didn't have the time to learn it, with highcharts it seemed quicker for me to implement some graphs and get my project over with.

Avalaxy• 13 years ago

Very much +1 for Highcharts. Best charting library I came across when looking for charting libraries. It's a bit on the expensive site though.

ayers• 13 years ago

I use highcharts at my work place. I have found it easy to use, well documented and over all a great charting library.

ag_47• 13 years ago

Take a look the the Google chart api, it's quite comprehensive and free.

Ask HN: Best library for adding charts / graphs to your website?

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