Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

C3.js VS ApexCharts

Compare C3.js VS ApexCharts and see what are their differences

C3.js logo C3.js

D3-based reusable chart library that enables deeper integration of charts into web applications

ApexCharts logo ApexCharts

Open-source modern charting library 📊
  • C3.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-01-08
  • ApexCharts Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-08

ApexCharts is a modern charting library that helps developers to create beautiful and interactive visualizations for web pages.

C3.js

Website
c3js.org
$ Details
Platforms
-
Release Date
-

ApexCharts

$ Details
Platforms
Web Browser JavaScript
Release Date
2018 July

C3.js features and specs

  • Easy to Use
    C3.js provides a simple and convenient way to create charts. Its API is designed to be easy to understand, making it accessible for both novice and experienced developers.
  • Customization
    The library offers a high degree of customization options, allowing developers to tweak the appearance and behavior of charts to meet specific requirements.
  • Integration with D3.js
    C3.js is built on top of D3.js, enabling it to leverage the extensive capabilities of D3.js while providing a more user-friendly API.
  • Responsiveness
    C3.js charts are responsive by default, meaning they automatically adjust to different screen sizes, which is essential for modern web applications.
  • Documentation
    Comprehensive documentation and a variety of examples make it easier for developers to get started and effectively use the library.
  • Open Source
    Being an open-source project, C3.js is freely available, and the community can contribute to its development, ensuring continuous improvements and updates.

Possible disadvantages of C3.js

  • Performance
    For complex visualizations and large datasets, C3.js may not perform as fast as other specialized charting libraries.
  • Limited Advanced Features
    While offering a good range of basic chart types, C3.js lacks some of the advanced features and chart types found in more comprehensive charting libraries.
  • Dependency on D3.js
    As C3.js is built on top of D3.js, it inherits some of D3.js's complexity. Developers sometimes need to understand D3.js to fully utilize C3.js's capabilities.
  • Maintenance and Updates
    The pace of updates and new releases is slower compared to some other libraries, which can be an issue for projects requiring the latest features and bug fixes.
  • Size
    C3.js, along with its dependency D3.js, can add significant size to the project, which may impact the performance of web applications, especially on slower networks.

ApexCharts features and specs

  • Interactive Charts
    ApexCharts provides visually appealing and interactive charts that enhance user experience through intuitive data visualization.
  • Wide Range of Chart Types
    It supports an extensive variety of chart types including line, bar, area, pie, and radar, allowing developers to choose the best representation for their data.
  • Customization Options
    ApexCharts offers extensive customization options enabling developers to adjust colors, labels, grids, and other chart elements to fit their needs.
  • Responsive Design
    Charts created with ApexCharts are responsive, which means they adjust elegantly to different screen sizes and devices.
  • Easy Integration
    ApexCharts can be easily integrated with popular front-end frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular, making it a versatile solution.
  • Detailed Documentation
    Comprehensive documentation is available to help developers quickly get up to speed and utilize all features effectively.
  • Performance
    ApexCharts is optimized for performance, ensuring that charts load efficiently even with large datasets.

Possible disadvantages of ApexCharts

  • Licensing Cost
    While ApexCharts offers a free version, advanced features and additional support come under a paid licensing model, which might be a constraint for some users.
  • Limited Free Feature Set
    The free tier offers a limited set of features compared to the paid plans, which could restrict functionality for organizations not looking to invest.
  • Learning Curve
    Despite good documentation, leveraging advanced features and customizations can have a steep learning curve for new users.
  • Dependency
    ApexCharts requires dependency on JavaScript and frameworks which might be a limitation if your project has restrictions against external libraries.
  • Community Support
    While there is community support available, it may not be as extensive or active compared to some other charting libraries.
  • Browser Compatibility
    Although generally compatible with modern browsers, some features may not perform consistently across all older browser versions.

C3.js videos

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ApexCharts videos

This week on Github Filament, Taskbook, Docz, Apexcharts, Mint Lang | #CodingPhase

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to C3.js and ApexCharts)
Charting Libraries
30 30%
70% 70
Data Dashboard
20 20%
80% 80
Data Visualization
21 21%
79% 79
Diagrams
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare C3.js and ApexCharts

C3.js Reviews

5 top picks for JavaScript chart libraries
C3.js is another easy-to-use JavaScript library for creating charts. It uses the D3 graphics library, so to create a chart with it, we’ll need both D3 and the C3 library itself.

ApexCharts Reviews

6 JavaScript Charting Libraries for Powerful Data Visualizations in 2023
ApexCharts was first released in 2018. It’s one of the least “mature” and yet most easy to use options on the list. Thanks to being open source and exceptionally user-friendly, ApexCharts has boomed in popularity in recent years and gets far more weekly downloads than more established tools like Plotly or FusionCharts.
Source: embeddable.com

Social recommendations and mentions

ApexCharts might be a bit more popular than C3.js. We know about 13 links to it since March 2021 and only 11 links to C3.js. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

C3.js mentions (11)

  • Tracking Real-time GitHub Dashboard Commits
    The dashboard is a mashup of GitHub, the PubNub Data Stream Network, and D3 chart visualizations powered by C3.js. When a commit is pushed to GitHub, the commit metadata is posted to a small Heroku instance which publishes it to the PubNub network. We’re hosting on dashboard page on GitHub pages. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Graph libraries
    I've been using https://c3js.org/ forever with vue. Works with v3 just fine. However, I'm very interested to see what others are using. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Teclis – Non-commercial web search
    Yes! I found https://c3js.org/ which is exactly what I want for my personal project. - Source: Hacker News / about 3 years ago
  • [OC] I spent the last 18 months of lockdown pouring my soul into a website that allows you to visualize virtually every U.S. company's international supply chain. E.g. What products, how much, which factories and where does Walmart import from? (Just type a company in the search box)
    C3.js is actually something that I like to use on top of D3, specifically for POC's and things like that. It wraps the D3 code in something a little more semantic, provides an API for updating the chart/data, and makes the UI easier to style after the chart is generated. Purely a preference thing, but might be useful in some cases. Source: over 3 years ago
  • [C3.js][TypeScript] Draw line charts 1
    C3.js | D3-based reusable chart library. - Source: dev.to / over 3 years ago
View more

ApexCharts mentions (13)

  • Building a financial dashboard with HTML5, TailwindCSS v4, and Vanilla JavaScript
    This is a basic HTML structure that includes Google Fonts, ApexCharts (for placeholder charts), and links to your compiled CSS and JavaScript files. The body includes classes for light and dark modes. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Optimizing Line Chart Performance with LTTB Algorithm
    When working with large datasets, rendering all points in a line chart can cause significant performance issues. For example, plotting 50,000 data points directly can overwhelm the browser and make the chart unresponsive. Tools like amCharts and ApexCharts struggle with such datasets, while ECharts performs better but still isn't optimized for extremely large datasets. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Level Up Your Web App with Stunning React Charts: Introducing the Top 10 React Charts Libraries
    ApexCharts is a modern charting library that helps developers to create beautiful and interactive visualizations for web pages. It is an open-source project licensed under MIT and is free to use in commercial applications. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • Selling OTM 0DTE is Free Money?
    Tradingview.com for the chart... But also apexcharts.com is a decent open source library whereas TV is not open source. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • [AskJS] React libs with charts
    We're using https://apexcharts.com/ in production and are reasonably satisfied with it. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing C3.js and ApexCharts, you can also consider the following products

UMLGraph - UMLGraph is a professional automated drawing tool that allows the designers the declarative specification and drawing of UML class and sequence diagram.

Chart.js - Easy, object oriented client side graphs for designers and developers.

Dia - Dia is a GTK+ based diagram creation program for GNU/Linux, MacOS X, Unix, and Windows, and is released under the GPL license.

Highcharts - A charting library written in pure JavaScript, offering an easy way of adding interactive charts to your web site or web application

yEd - yEd is a free desktop application to quickly create, import, edit, and automatically arrange diagrams. It runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Unix/Linux.

D3.js - D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. D3 helps you bring data to life using HTML, SVG, and CSS.