Originally published at: http://www.sitepoint.com/15-best-javascript-charting-libraries/
It is practically impossible to imagine any dashboard without graphs and charts. They present complex statistics quickly and effectively. Additionally, a good graph also enhances the overall design of your website.
In this article, I will show you some of the best JavaScript libraries for graphs / charts. These libraries will help you create beautiful and customisable charts for your future projects.
While most of the libraries are free and open source, some of them provide a paid version with additional features.
D3.js — Data-Driven Documents
When we think of charting today, D3.js is the first name that comes up. Being an open source project, D3.js definitely brings many powerful features that were missing in most of the existing libraries. Features like “Enter and Exit”, powerful transitions and syntax familiarity with jQuery or Prototype make it one the best JavaScript libraries for charting. Charts in D3.js are rendered via HTML, SVG and CSS.
Unlike many other JavaScript libraries, D3.js doesn’t ship with any pre-built charts out of the box. However, you can look at the list of graphs built with D3.js to get an overview.
D3.js doesn’t work well with older browsers like IE8. You can always use plugins like aight plugin for cross browser compatibility.
Websites like NYTimes, Uber and Weather.com have used D3.js extensively in the past.
Google Charts
Google Charts is my go-to JavaScript library for creating charts easily. It provides many pre-built charts like area charts, bar charts, calendar charts, pie Charts, geo charts, and more.
Google charts also comes with various customization options that help in changing the look of the graph. Charts are rendered using HTML5/SVG to provide cross-browser compatibility and cross platform portability to iPhones, iPads, and Android. It also includes VML for supporting older IE versions.
Here’s a great list of examples built using Google charts.
