C3.js VS PlantUML

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

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C3.js

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

PlantUML

PlantUML is an open-source tool that uses simple textual descriptions to draw UML diagrams.

Landing page //
2019-01-08

Landing page //
2023-10-22

C3.js

Website: c3js.org
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PlantUML

Website: plantuml.com
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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.

PlantUML features and specs

Simple Syntax
PlantUML uses a plain text language that is easy to learn, making it accessible for both technical and non-technical users.
Quick Diagram Creation
Due to its straightforward text-based syntax, diagrams can be created and modified quickly without the need for a graphical interface.
Version Control Friendly
Diagrams are stored as text files, making them easy to manage with version control systems like Git.
Integrations
PlantUML integrates well with many other tools and platforms including IDEs (e.g., IntelliJ, VSCode), documentation generators (e.g., Doxygen, Sphinx), and project management tools.
Wide Range of Diagrams
PlantUML supports a variety of UML and non-UML diagrams, including sequence diagrams, use case diagrams, class diagrams, and more.
Open Source
PlantUML is an open-source tool, which makes it free to use and allows for community contributions and extensions.

Possible disadvantages of PlantUML

Learning Curve
While the syntax is simple, users unfamiliar with text-based diagramming may need time to become proficient.
No GUI
PlantUML lacks a graphical user interface (GUI), which might be a disadvantage for users who prefer drag-and-drop diagram creation.
Complex Diagrams
For very complex diagrams, the text-based syntax can become cumbersome and hard to manage.
Rendering Limitations
The style and formatting options are less flexible compared to some dedicated graphical diagramming tools.
Performance
For large diagrams, the text-to-diagram rendering process can be slow.
Security Concerns
Using PlantUML with remote server options might raise security issues, particularly when dealing with sensitive information.

Analysis of C3.js

Overall verdict

Yes, C3.js is a good choice for creating charts and graphs for most web applications. It offers a combination of ease of use and flexibility, which is appealing to both novice and experienced developers.

Why this product is good

C3.js is a D3-based chart library that simplifies the process of creating dynamic, reusable charts. It provides a variety of chart types with minimal configuration required, and its API is designed to be intuitive and easy to use. This makes it a good choice for developers who want to leverage the power of D3.js without dealing with its complexity.

Recommended for

Developers looking for a straightforward way to create dynamic charts with customizable options, businesses needing reliable charting for data visualization, and projects where a quick setup with a steep learning curve is crucial.

Analysis of PlantUML

Overall verdict

Yes, PlantUML is a good tool for developers and teams who need a straightforward and efficient way to create and manage diagrams within their projects. Its text-based approach allows for easy updates and maintenance, which is beneficial in agile and fast-paced development settings.

Why this product is good

PlantUML is appreciated for its simplicity and versatility in creating UML diagrams. It allows users to write diagrams using a concise text-based language, which can be easily integrated into code repositories for version control. This approach facilitates collaboration and documentation among developers. Moreover, it supports various diagram types beyond UML, such as sequence diagrams, class diagrams, and state diagrams, and can be integrated with other tools and editors, enhancing its utility across different environments.

Recommended for

Software developers
Technical architects
Project managers
Teams using agile methodologies
Educators teaching software design

C3.js videos

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PlantUML videos

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PlantUML - beautiful quick diagrams to explain your models

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to C3.js and PlantUML)

C3.js

PlantUML

Charting Libraries

100 100%

Charting Libraries

0% 0

Diagrams

4 4%

Diagrams

96% 96

Data Dashboard

100 100%

Data Dashboard

0% 0

Flowcharts

0 0%

Flowcharts

100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using C3.js and PlantUML. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

Reviews

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

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.

Source: blog.logrocket.com

PlantUML Reviews

Top 7 diagrams as code tools for software architecture

PlantUML is a tool that allows you to write diagrams such as sequence, object, component, usecase, class diagrams and more.

Source: icepanel.medium.com

5 great diagramming tools for enterprise and software architects

PlantUML is an open source tool and syntax that allows you to make sequence, use case, class, object, and other diagrams from code. It also supports non-UML diagrams like JSON and YAML. In addition, it enjoys support from ArchiMate, ERD, Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), and other common notation styles. Its simple, plain-text definitions make creating, sharing, and...

Source: www.redhat.com

Software Diagrams - Plant UML vs Mermaid

For C4 Models, Mermaid support is still experimental. This shows as you have little control over the way the diagram is rendered, and some parts are unreadable (i.e., arrows over nodes). PlantUML works as you would expect and has support for more advanced setup like sprites. Not even close on this one. Winner: PlantUML

Source: www.dandoescode.com

9 Best UML Software For Mac & PC

PlantUML is another free open source sequence diagram software that uses text input to build UML charts. PlantUML requires using a specific PlantUML Language to construct sequence charts but once learned it’s very flexible.

Source: machow2.com

40 Open Source, Free and Top Unified Modeling Language (UML) Tools

PlantUML is a component that allows users to quickly write sequence diagrams, usecase diagrams, class diagrams, activity diagrams, component diagrams, state diagrams, deployment diagrams, object diagrams and wireframe graphical interfaces. Diagrams are defined using a simple and intuitive language. Images can be generated in PNG, SVG or LaTeX format and it is also possible...

Source: www.predictiveanalyticstoday.com

Social recommendations and mentions

PlantUML might be a bit more popular than C3.js. We know about 12 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 / 12 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

PlantUML mentions (12)

Owning my own data, part 1: Integrating a self-hosted calendar solution
That particular diagram seems to have been generated by https://plantuml.com according to the image's metadata. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
Common Mistakes in Architecture Diagrams (2020)
I have to confess I am guilty of this — I used to just draw some unstructured circles and arrows on a whiteboard and call it enough. Lately I've been trying to work my way through lots of different diagram types from https://plantuml.com/, and it does help to wrap my mind around the existing options. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
LLM + Mermaid: How Modern Teams Create UML Diagrams Without Lucidchart
Today, tools like Mermaid and PlantUML have taken center stage, thanks to their ability to generate diagrams with text-based commands. Even better, AI-powered assistants like Claude, ChatGPT, and GitHub Copilot have made generating diagrams even easier. These tools work directly within a developer's environment, creating diagrams that are version-controlled and integrated seamlessly into workflows. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
Blockdiag – simple diagram images generator – blockdiag 1.0 documentation
While inactive blockdiag was small and nice for automatically annotating documentation. As you can see it hasn't been maintained for a few years. https://github.com/blockdiag/blockdiag With complex diagrams, I find good old PlantUML diagrams more useful if not as initially pretty as mermaid. Plus it will output archimate without having to touch that UI https://plantuml.com/ But really it is horses for courses.... - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
Introduction to Haskell Diagrams
Use a high-level language like Plant UML, D2, Graphviz which are good for the purpose they are designed for, but not for generic purpose diagramming. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing C3.js and PlantUML, 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.

draw.io - Online diagramming application

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.

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.

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

LucidChart - LucidChart is the missing link in online productivity suites. LucidChart allows users to create, collaborate on, and publish attractive flowcharts and other diagrams from a web browser.

LucidChart vs PlantUML