recharts vs chart.js vs react-chartjs-2 vs react-vis
Data Visualization Libraries for React Comparison
1 Year
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What's Data Visualization Libraries for React?

Data visualization libraries are essential tools for developers to create interactive and visually appealing charts and graphs in web applications. These libraries provide pre-built components and functionalities that simplify the process of rendering complex data in a user-friendly format. By utilizing these libraries, developers can enhance the user experience, making data insights more accessible and understandable. Each library has its unique features, design philosophies, and integration capabilities, catering to different project requirements and developer preferences.

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recharts7,991,77125,3604.65 MB45416 hours agoMIT
chart.js4,865,08966,0976.17 MB4817 days agoMIT
react-chartjs-21,849,1446,80555.9 kB1036 months agoMIT
react-vis63,6598,7602.18 MB3432 years agoMIT
Feature Comparison: recharts vs chart.js vs react-chartjs-2 vs react-vis

Ease of Use

  • recharts:

    Recharts is designed with a focus on simplicity and composability. Its declarative syntax allows developers to create charts by nesting components, making it straightforward to customize and extend. The library is particularly friendly for those familiar with React, as it follows React's conventions closely.

  • chart.js:

    Chart.js is known for its simplicity and ease of use. With a straightforward API, developers can quickly create charts with minimal configuration. It supports a variety of chart types, making it a great choice for those who need quick visualizations without a steep learning curve.

  • react-chartjs-2:

    react-chartjs-2 enhances the ease of use of Chart.js by providing React components that handle the integration seamlessly. It allows developers to utilize Chart.js features while adhering to React's component lifecycle, making it intuitive for React developers to implement charts without extensive boilerplate code.

  • react-vis:

    react-vis offers a user-friendly API that is easy to grasp for React developers. Its components are designed to be composable, allowing developers to build complex visualizations with minimal effort. The library's documentation is also beginner-friendly, making it accessible for those new to data visualization.

Customization

  • recharts:

    Recharts allows for significant customization through its component-based architecture. Developers can easily modify styles, add custom tooltips, and create responsive designs. Its composable nature enables the creation of unique chart types tailored to specific data visualization needs.

  • chart.js:

    Chart.js provides extensive customization options, allowing developers to tweak almost every aspect of the charts, including colors, scales, tooltips, and animations. This level of customization makes it suitable for projects that require a unique look and feel for their visualizations.

  • react-chartjs-2:

    With react-chartjs-2, developers can leverage the full customization capabilities of Chart.js while benefiting from React's state management. This means that any changes in the React component state can directly affect the chart's appearance, providing dynamic and interactive visualizations.

  • react-vis:

    react-vis offers a range of customization options, including styles, colors, and layouts. It is particularly strong in creating complex visualizations that require detailed customization, making it ideal for data-driven applications where presentation is key.

Performance

  • recharts:

    Recharts is built on D3.js and is optimized for performance with a focus on rendering efficiency. It handles large datasets well, but developers should be cautious about the number of components rendered, as excessive nesting can impact performance.

  • chart.js:

    Chart.js is optimized for performance and can handle a moderate amount of data without significant lag. However, for extremely large datasets, performance may degrade, and developers need to implement strategies like data aggregation or limiting the number of displayed data points.

  • react-chartjs-2:

    Since react-chartjs-2 is a wrapper around Chart.js, it inherits its performance characteristics. It performs well for most use cases, but developers should be mindful of React's rendering behavior to avoid unnecessary re-renders that could impact performance when dealing with large datasets.

  • react-vis:

    react-vis is designed to handle a variety of data sizes efficiently. It uses virtualization techniques to render only the visible parts of the visualization, which helps maintain performance even with larger datasets. However, complex visualizations may still require optimization efforts.

Community and Support

  • recharts:

    Recharts has a growing community and is well-documented, making it easy for developers to get started. The library's design encourages contributions, and many developers share their custom components and enhancements, fostering a collaborative environment.

  • chart.js:

    Chart.js has a large and active community, providing extensive documentation, examples, and third-party plugins. This community support makes it easier for developers to find solutions to common issues and share their customizations with others.

  • react-chartjs-2:

    Being a popular wrapper for Chart.js, react-chartjs-2 benefits from the same community support and resources. Developers can find numerous tutorials, examples, and discussions that help in troubleshooting and optimizing their chart implementations.

  • react-vis:

    react-vis has a supportive community, although it may not be as large as Chart.js or Recharts. The documentation is comprehensive, and there are resources available for common use cases, but developers may find fewer third-party extensions compared to more established libraries.

How to Choose: recharts vs chart.js vs react-chartjs-2 vs react-vis
  • recharts:

    Choose Recharts if you prefer a composable and declarative approach to building charts in React. It is built on top of D3.js and provides a set of React components that make it easy to create responsive and customizable charts, particularly for projects that require a clean and modern design.

  • chart.js:

    Choose Chart.js if you need a lightweight and versatile charting library that is easy to use and integrates well with various frameworks. It is suitable for projects that require a wide range of chart types and customization options without heavy dependencies.

  • react-chartjs-2:

    Opt for react-chartjs-2 if you are working specifically with React and want to leverage the power of Chart.js with a React-friendly wrapper. It simplifies the integration of Chart.js into React applications, making it easier to manage state and lifecycle methods while maintaining the flexibility of Chart.js.

  • react-vis:

    Select react-vis if you are looking for a library that is designed specifically for React applications and offers a wide variety of visualization options. It is particularly useful for creating complex visualizations and is built with a focus on data-driven design, making it a great choice for data-heavy applications.

README for recharts

Recharts

storybook Build Status Coverage Status npm version npm downloads MIT License

Introduction

Recharts is a Redefined chart library built with React and D3.

The main purpose of this library is to help you to write charts in React applications without any pain. Main principles of Recharts are:

  1. Simply deploy with React components.
  2. Native SVG support, lightweight depending only on some D3 submodules.
  3. Declarative components, components of charts are purely presentational.

Documentation at recharts.org and our storybook (WIP)

Please see the wiki for FAQ.

All development is done on the master branch. The current latest release and storybook documentation reflects what is on the release branch.

Examples

<LineChart width={400} height={400} data={data} margin={{ top: 5, right: 20, left: 10, bottom: 5 }}>
  <XAxis dataKey="name" />
  <Tooltip />
  <CartesianGrid stroke="#f5f5f5" />
  <Line type="monotone" dataKey="uv" stroke="#ff7300" yAxisId={0} />
  <Line type="monotone" dataKey="pv" stroke="#387908" yAxisId={1} />
</LineChart>

All the components of Recharts are clearly separated. The lineChart is composed of x axis, tooltip, grid, and line items, and each of them is an independent React Component. The clear separation and composition of components is one of the principle Recharts follows.

Installation

npm

NPM is the easiest and fastest way to get started using Recharts. It is also the recommended installation method when building single-page applications (SPAs). It pairs nicely with a CommonJS module bundler such as Webpack.

# latest stable
$ npm install recharts

umd

The UMD build is also available on unpkg.com:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/react/umd/react.production.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react-dom/umd/react-dom.production.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/recharts/umd/Recharts.min.js"></script>

Then you can find the library on window.Recharts.

dev build

$ git clone https://github.com/recharts/recharts.git
$ cd recharts
$ npm install
$ npm run build

Demo

To examine the demos in your local build, execute:

$ npm run[-script] demo

and then browse to http://localhost:3000.

Storybook

We are in the process of unifying documentation and examples in storybook. To run it locally, execute

$ npm run[-script] storybook

and then browse to http://localhost:6006.

Releases

Releases are automated via GH Actions - when a new release is created in GH, CI will trigger that:

  1. Runs a build
  2. Runs tests
  3. Runs npm publish

Version increments and tagging are not automated at this time.

Release testing

Until we can automate more, it should be preferred to test as close to the results of npm publish as we possibly can. This ensures we don't publish unintended breaking changes. One way to do that is using yalc - npm i -g yalc.

  1. Make your changes in recharts
  2. yalc publish in recharts
  3. yalc add recharts in your test package (ex: in a vite or webpack reach app with recharts installed, imported, and your recent changes used)
  4. npm install
  5. Test a local run, a build, etc.

Module Formats

  • babel-plugin-recharts A simple transform to cherry-pick Recharts modules so you don’t have to. Note: this plugin is out of date and may not work with 2.x

Thanks

Chromatic

Thanks to Chromatic for providing the visual testing platform that helps us review UI changes and catch visual regressions.

License

MIT

Copyright (c) 2015-2023 Recharts Group.