There are many javascript chart tools available on the web. Javascript code can easily plot beautiful charts and graphs. This is a list of javascript charts and graphs open source libraries that can help you plot charts easily using JS.
Although a web application can use many ways to depict graphs or data, still client side processing of data reduces the load on server and improves overall latency. Open source JavaScript charting libraries are great tools for implementing data in the form of charts and graphs at the client side. The list of famous open source JavaScript charting libraries is given below-
- jqPlot
- TufteGraph
- Cytoscape Web
Morris.js- gvChart Plugin
- HighCharts Table Plugin
- MooChart
- MilkChart
- ExtJS
Rapheal- Ico
- Flot
- Flotr
- TimePlot
- Timeline
- Protochart
- Gaffico
- AwesomeChartJS
- Plotkit
- D3.js
- Cubism.js
- RGraph
- Sigma.js
- Dracula Graph Library
gRaphael
jQuery Plugins
jqPlot is a jQuery plug-in which is used for data visualization and it provides easy customization of charts. It is licensed under MIT and GPL2.
TufteGraph provides animated graphs which can be configured to get dynamic charts and the code. It’s very simple and uses CSS to depict the graphs. However, one must note that the code should use JQuery and tufte-graph.css should be included at the start of the page.
Cytoscape Web is a Open Source jQuery Plugin for graph visualization developed by University of Toronto. The library allows to attach user events to do easy integration with web pages. This supports all popular browsers.
Morris.js is a library that uses jQuery and Raphael for drawing time-series graphs easy. This supports not only all leading browsers, but also iOS 3+ and Android 3+.
gvChart is jQuery charting plugin that uses Google Charts API. This easy to use plugin can be used for interactive visualization from the HTML table tag. This plugin support common chart types and
HighchartsTable is a jQuery plugin that accepts data from a HTML table and reads them to simply create Hightcharts chart. This is licensed under MIT and free for commercial use.
MooTools Plugins
Moochart plots bubble diagram and its new plug-in provides the feature to depict bar graphs, line, pie etc. There are 14 options provided in the plug-in for customizing the diagram and a tooltip is offered on mouse over too. It’s licensed under MIT.
Milkchart is Javascript based graphing library which requires Mootools and it provides charts in 5 different styles – bar, column, line, pie and scatter. It uses HTML 5 elements for canvas and it is licensed under Apache.
Other JS Frameworks and Libraries
ExtJS merged with JQTouch and Rapheal which formed a platform called Snecha, and it provides advanced charting and graphic features. ExtJS is a JavaScript library which uses technology such as Ajax, DOM scripting and DHTML. It provides interoperability with Prototype and jQuery. You can design flash charts, sliders and other types of animated charts using ExtJS and it is licensed under BSD.
Rapheal is small JavaScript library which helps to create many different shapes, bars, charts and pies. You have to include raphael.js page into the HTML file to use its features. It is supported by browsers Chrome 5.0, Safari 3.0, Explorer 6.0 and Firefox 3.0.
Ico provides graphics and charts, and uses Rapheal to design graphics. It supports line graphs, bullet graphs, horizontal and vertical bar graphs. It has been tested on web browsers Firefox, IE, Safari, Google Chrome and Opera. It provides single axis support and it can be used to create complex graphs as well.
Flot is developed in GitHub and it was developed by Ole Laursen. It is sponsored by a Danish web development company IOLA and it is a JavaScript plotting library which provides graphical shapes and designs using arbitrary dataset. It is very simple to use as it enables mouse tracking and zooming features. The plug-in can work on Firefox 2, Opera 9.5, Safari 3, Explorer 6 and Konqueror 4.
Flotr is designed on ‘Flot’ and provides unique features such as negative value support, selection support, mouse tracking and CSS Styling, but does not have a pie chart. It is licensed under MIT.
Timeplot allows creating graphs of time series and revealing its values. It is developed as a part of SIMILE Project at MIT and it is licensed under BSD.
Timeline is a JavaScript based plug-ins which provides items in chronological order, or you can see items by dragging mouse button on timeline. Dots are used to expand timeline and it is licensed under BSD.
Protochart is inspired from Flot ant Plotkit, and provides customizable support. Charts such as line, pie, bar, mix, curve and area are available and it helps to develop the graphs on iPhone. It has support for IE 6 and 7, Safari and FF 2 and 3.
Gaffico is inspired from prototype.js and Rapheal. It provides options for graphs and can be built on guidelines of Stephen Few and Edward Tufte. It does not provide support for pie and bars. Its highlight includes watermarks, hovers, lines etc and it is licensed under MIT.
AwesomeChartJS helps to draw charts in no time. It is based on HTML 5 canvas elements and it can create bar – vertical horizontal, doughnut, Pareto charts and pies. Awesomechart.js is licensed under Apache License v2.0.
Plotkit provides support for HTML Canvas, SVG and Adobe SVG viewers, and it is licensed under BSD.
D3.js is a innovative JavaScript library for manipulation of documents based on data. This library provides powerful api to visualize raw data using HTML, SVG and CSS. D3.js follows web standards and supports all popular browsers. D3.js is unique since it focuses on data transformation and not a graphical representation.
Cubism.js is a scalable and effective D3.js Plugin written in JavaScript for time series visualization. Cubism’s horizon chart feature allows better utilization of vertical space than other regular charting libraries.
RGraph is a Javascript and HTML5 based charts library that supports wide variety of charts. This library uses the HTML5 canvas tag, that means the performance is much better.
Sigma.js is yet another Open Source JavaScript library that utilizes HTML canvas element. This library is designed to do graph visualization platform like Gephi.
Dracula Graph Library is a set of tools for plotting interactive graphs. This library uses plain JavaScript and SVG. This is Open Source licensed under MIT license. This library provides a lot of easy ways to customize look and feel of graphs.
gRaphael is a Raphael based library for plotting various common type of graphs in easy way. This is a Open Source and free to use on commercial project with a MIT license.
There are a number of other good JavaScript charting libraries too, besides the ones mentioned. Do let us know if you have used some other libraries or plug-ins which you were impressed with.