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There are some very specific things to check when selecting the right JavaScript chartlibrary for your project, to ensure its functionality in the long run.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN CHOOSING A LIBRARY

PRICEThere are a lot of free libraries to choose from, but also many that require a subscription. From the free options, there are some open source,but none of these give you support or a warranty, so, if this is a concernto you, you might consider opting for a licensed option thatcomes with warranty and support.

Most web-based application front ends are built using frameworks,and even if most libraries work with main frameworks like ReactJS, Angularor Vue, some don’t, so you’ll need to choose a library that is compatiblewith the framework you’ve decided to build your application on.

ANIMATIONSAnimations might or might not be essential and you should

consider this. If you want or need your charts to be animated,this functionality also needs to be addressed when choosing

the library you’ll use.

CHART TYPES

FRAMEWORK

If you’re looking for a library to build specific types of chart, this should be one of your requirements. There are some chart libraries that support only one or a few specific types, which needs to be considered when choosing your library.

LIBRARY FILESIf you’re planning to use only one or two chart types, there is no requirement for a library that

supports multiple chart types. There is also the option to import just the charts you need,even from a library providing a range of chart types. When choosing librariesfor your projects, whether you require charts or not, your development team

should always have an eye to the size of the libraries you’ll use in your projects.It’s essential to make sure that everything you import will be used,

so you don’t end up with an oversized application for no reason.This will affect overall performance.

Some libraries have cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility. If there is a need to displaythe chart on multiple platforms or browsers, this must be a factor to consider.A responsive chart is perfect for cross-platform but can also bring some browser compatibility problems to your project.

COMPATIBILITY

CUSTOMISATIONIf you want to customise your charts, customisation capability is something that you might

need to set as a requirement. Some libraries accept CSS customisation as parameters, some as stylesheets, but others won’t let you customise the charts at all.

So that’s a feature you will want to keep an eye on.

Charts.js is one of the most popular chart libraries using JavaScript.It’s open source and has a huge community, so it’s a great option because there are alwayspeople improving the library and creating a great knowledge base.It has eight chart types, which isn’t a lot, but will probably fit the needs of most projects.

The charts are responsive, nice looking by default, have some animations and can be customised. Nevertheless, if your goal is to have a hugely customisable library using CSS,there are better options to choose from.

Charts.js has decent documentation as well, which will help developers, however, it has two dependencies: chartjs-color and moment. If you want to avoid possible problems here,you might need to evaluate these dependencies and decide if the option is a good fit foryour project and needs.

For this comparison we chose 5 of what we think are the best JavaScript chart librariesand reviewed them based on the premises given above.

Check them out and make your choice accordingly:

1 CHART.JS | FREE

THE 5 BEST JAVASCRIPTCHART LIBRARIESAND HOW TO CHOOSE

Another day goes by and our businesses continue to expand the amount of data they are producing. But how useful is this data to us if we cannot even see it? The need for data visualisation is growing every day, and it is present in almost every application. So, how can you achieve this, inside your web application or customer portal? We build dashboards and use charts to organise and clarify this data, for you, your business and your clients. To create those charts, we can use libraries to help achieve business goals. For web-based applications, most of those libraries are developedin JavaScript.

There are multiple Javascript chart libraries; some are free, some are paid, and the choice can be made according to the specific project needs.

THE BEST LIBRARIES5

This library has some trouble with larger datasets, so if you intend on using datasets with more than one thousand values, Chart.js will experience some delay on rendering your charts. The main benefit is that it’s very easy to create a line chart using Chart.js.You just need to build your JSON object using the options you desire:

HIGHCHARTS | LICENSED

APEXCHARTS | FREE

FUSIONCHARTS | LICENSED

2

3

4

D3.JS | GRATUITA5

Highcharts is an easy library to implement, and it is also extremely customisable and interactive.It has a lot of documentation and examples, which will help along the implementation process.Although the price is high for commercial use, they offer 24-hr support to assuage any doubtsyou might have and a comprehensive set of chart types, customisation options and alreadyimplemented interactivity.

By default, Highcharts doesn’t held back any dependencies.

Highcharts deals well with datasets of up to 1.7 million points, which gives it a considerable advantage over the previous libraries we evaluated.

As with most of the chart libraries, you’ll need to build a JSON object using yourchart information:

ApexCharts is not as well-known as Chart.js but is a complete library for building charts while maintaining the advantage of being open source.

It’s presentable by default but also offers some customisable features, and pretty good animations, plus seven types of charts. Besides, it comes bundled with many functionalities already implemented, although not for every type of chart, such as zoom on time charts and the ability to download charts as png or svg for bar or line charts.It’s also possible to synchronise multiple charts, which is an interesting feature.

ApexCharts is better, with bigger datasets, but not by much. If you’re using a dataset with more than one thousand values, it too will show some delay.Although it will still render with larger datasets, the delay will increase with the size of the sample.

2st DataSet

Label

1

Label

3

Label

5

Label

7

Label

9

Label

11

Label

13

Label

15

Label

17

Label

20

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

ApexCharts has seven dependencies, which might become a problem in the future if anyof them turns out to be a failure (all of these dependencies concern svg).

Documentation is comprehensive, and implementation is simple, so ApexCharts is aexcellent library for developers.To implement ApexCharts, you need to create your JSON object as Chart.js:

sales returns2010

30 40 3550 49 60 70

91

125

140

120

140

80

60

40

20

0

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

D3 is the open-source library with the most features. It’s possible to use it to build fully customisable charts and add a lot of functionality, but you need to build it from scratch, which means it’sa job for the developers.

So, the main benefit is that you can build an entirely customisable chart, with all the functionalityyou like. However, this library represents a significant learning curve, since you must code everything even to create the simplest chart (it’s a trade-off).

D3 library has many dependencies – 31 to be exact – and this might be a problem for many developers. The good thing is all these dependencies are packages developed by theD3 company itself, to guarantee safety. In the next example, we can see that a simple chart requires a lot of work, but it’s possible to build the chart just as we want:

80

100

120 120

160

3040

180

FusionCharts is a very extensive library with more than 95 chart types. It has proper documentation and examples for the more commonly used frameworks such as AngularJS, Angular 2+, ReactJSand Vue, among others. It’s easy to implement and user experience is good. FusionCharts offers support for each licence.

This library accepts up to 3000 points to display on each chart, which seems a lot, but if you’retrying to display a large dataset, this can be a limitation to your project.This is an example of FusionCharts using Angular, which is nicely documented and has good examples to follow on their website:

CONCLUSION

Don’t have active community

31 from D3

You build yourown Charts95+

Free

5000+ records

FusionCharts.js D3.js

Chrome, Firefox 2.0+,Internet Explorer 6+

Safari 5.0+

Chrome 4+, Firefox 3+,Internet Explorer 9+

Edge 12+, Safari 3.2+

Chartjs-color andmoment

Active communityExtremely active community

7 from svgNo direct dependencies

10 andmixed charts

8 andmixed charts

Responsive

Animations

FreeFree Free for non comercial use.Paid for comercial use.

Up to 1000 records

Chart.js HighCharts ApexCharts.js

Chrome 50+, Firefox 45+,Internet Explorer 11,Edge 14+, Safari 9+

Chrome 1.0+, Firefox 2.0+,Internet Explorer 9+

Edge 12+, Safari 4.0+

Chrome 50+, Firefox 31+,Internet Explorer 11

Edge, Safari 6+

Up to 2000 records5000+ records

Char

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epen

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Com

mun

ityPe

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man

cew

ith la

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data

Supo

rted

Brow

sers

20+

No direct dependencies

Free for non comercial use.Paid for comercial use.

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