Can you imagine a dashboard without any charts and graphs? After all, they present statistics effectively and also, a good graph enhances the overall design of any website.
So, why not go for the best Javascript libraries available for charts and graphs? These libraries will not only help you to create beautifully but also highly customization charts for your projects.
Granted, most of the libraries are free as well as open source, while among them, some are known to offer a paid version which offers additional features.
So, without any further ado, let’s come to know some of the best Javascript libraries.
In this article
Google Charts
Coming with many customization options, Google charts is preferred by many due to its easy interface. With Google charts, you can literally create anything that you can think of – pie charts, bar charts, area charts, and many more.
With Google charts, you can change the entire look of your chart at one go, and since the charts are rendered using SVG/HTML5 and as such, provides cross-platform portability and cross-browser compatibility to all devices – Android, iPads, and iPhones.
The good news is that Google charts also include VML which supports older versions of Internet Explorer.
n3-charts
If you are an Angular developer, then, you must have heard of n3-charts. Deemed to be one of the best Javascript libraries for Angular developers, this library is built on D3.js as well as Angular and is known to provide various charts in the form of customizable Angular directives.
ZingChart
Known to be fast, flexible, interactive as well as scalable, you should go for ZingChart, if you need to whip up a chart quickly. A favorite of Microsoft, Adobe, Walmart and Apple, this JavaScript library is built with HTML5, JSON, and Ajax and as such can deliver beautiful charts in no time.
The best part is that ZingChart is free to use, but it does provide licenses and that you can buy based on the size of your business.
EJSCharts
Deemed as one of the best open source solutions for both home and business, EJSCharts, according to its makers, can be termed as an enterprise-ready charting JavaScript library. The charts created with this JavaScript library are known to be clean and beautiful than most of the older JavaScript libraries.
EJSCharts offers both free and paid versions. The paid version will offer you a whole lot of options while the free version will allow you to use a maximum of 1 chart per page with 2 series per chart.
Plotly.js
One of the oldest open-source JavaScript libraries, it was founded in the year 2015, and is known to support the usual basic charts – line charts, pie charts and as such along with a whopping 20 other different chart types – right from error bars, maps, histograms, maps and many more.
Since Plotly.js is known to use D3.js under-the-hood, for many, this JavaScript library has been a savior when it comes to creating D3.js graphs, rather than using the D3.js by itself.
D3.js
When it comes to the creation of beautiful charts, D3.js is the first name that comes to the mind. Known to be an open-source project, the charts in D3.js are rendered using the HTML, CSS, and SVG and brings with it many powerful features which were previously missing from many existing libraries.
Features like ‘Exit’ as well as ‘Enter’ as well as their familiarity with jQuery or Prototype, has made D3.js one of the best JavaScript libraries.
However, one thing which needs to be kept in mind is that D3.js doesn’t work well with older browsers, namely IE8.
ChartJS
If you are the creative type and loves to create beautiful things, then, you are going to love ChartJS. ChartJS is one of the best JavaScript libraries with which you can create charts with beautiful flat designs. Made to be responsive by default, the charts created with ChartJS works well on both mobiles and tablets.
One of the most beautiful open-source JavaSript libraries, ChartJS comes with various core charts such as radar line, polar area, bar, doughnut, and core. As this is not enough, ChartJS also supports older browsers such as IE7/8.
Chartist.js
Another JavaScript library with which you can create beautiful and responsive charts is ‘Chartist.js’. This JavaScript library was born as a result of the developer community getting frustrated with the highly priced JavaScript libraries.
The best part about this JavaScript library is that it is rendered using SVG and as such, it can further be customized through CSS3 media queries and Sass.
One thing, that needs to be kept in mind is that Chartist.js provides animations, though they will only work in modern browsers.
Ember Charts
Using SVG to render charts, Ember Charts is another great open-source JavaScript library with which you can create beautiful as well as highly customizable charts. Built with Ember.js and D3.js, Ember Chart is known to provide bar charts, pie charts, time series and scatter charts.
ChartKick
If you are a Ruby developer, then, you are going to love ChartKick since this JavaScript library is built extensively for all Ruby applications. With this charting library, you get all the major chart types such as timeline, geo, column, bar and many more.
Like many other charting libraries, ChartKick also uses SVG to render charts.
Smoothie Charts
If you have to deal with streaming real-time data every now and then, your best bet is to go for ‘Smoothie Charts’. Not only does it use HTML5 to render the chart, but it also provides a pure JavaScript library with options such as splash colors, delay, to name a few, to the real-time graphs.
Conclusion
Like with any other numerous options, there are no set criteria on which JavaScript charting library you should go for. It all depends on your needs. If, you as a developer, want to have control over all of your charts, then, you should definitely opt for D3.js.
That being said, all of the above-given JavaScript libraries have a great community backing them, and should you run into any trouble – support is always available via the forums on Stack OverFlow.
