Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

C3.js VS Recharts

Compare C3.js VS Recharts 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

Recharts logo Recharts

Redefined chart library built with React and D3
  • C3.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-01-08
  • Recharts Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-13

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.

Recharts features and specs

  • Easy to Use
    Recharts is designed to be simple to set up and use, making it accessible for developers who want to quickly implement charts without deep knowledge of D3 or other complex libraries.
  • React Integration
    As a React-based library, Recharts integrates seamlessly with React applications, allowing developers to utilize components and props to manage chart data and customization.
  • Rich Set of Components
    Recharts offers a variety of pre-built chart types and components, such as line, bar, area, pie, and radar charts, enabling developers to satisfy many visualization needs.
  • Customizable and Flexible
    The library provides a wide range of configuration options and the ability to customize the look and behavior of charts, allowing developers to tailor visualizations to their specific requirements.
  • Active Community and Documentation
    Recharts has a strong community and good documentation, providing support, examples, and guides for both new and advanced users.

Possible disadvantages of Recharts

  • Limited Interactivity
    Compared to more comprehensive libraries like D3.js, Recharts offers limited interactivity and advanced animations, which may not meet the needs of applications requiring dynamic user interactions.
  • Performance with Large Datasets
    Recharts can face performance issues when dealing with large datasets, as it is not optimized for handling large numbers of data points efficiently.
  • Dependence on React
    As it is designed specifically for React, developers using other frameworks or vanilla JavaScript might find it less applicable, limiting its use outside of React projects.
  • Lack of Advanced Customization
    While it offers customization, Recharts doesn’t provide the deep level of customization available in libraries like D3.js, which may be necessary for more complex visualizations.
  • Less Frequent Updates
    The frequency of updates and new features can sometimes lag behind other libraries, potentially limiting access to the latest charting capabilities or bug fixes.

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 Recharts

Overall verdict

  • Recharts is generally considered a good choice for developers looking for an easy-to-use and flexible charting library in the React ecosystem. Its use of composable components allows for efficient integration and customization, which is suitable for both simple and complex charting requirements.

Why this product is good

  • Recharts is a popular charting library for React that is built on top of D3.js and offers a range of customizable components for creating responsive and attractive charts. It is highly appreciated for its simplicity, ease of use, and integration capabilities with React applications. The library provides a rich set of chart types including line, bar, pie, area, and more, making it a versatile tool for data visualization needs.

Recommended for

  • Developers building applications in React who require responsive and customizable charts.
  • Projects that need a quick and easy setup for data visualization without compromising on flexibility.
  • Teams that want to leverage the power of D3.js without directly dealing with its complexity.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to C3.js and Recharts)
Charting Libraries
33 33%
67% 67
Data Dashboard
34 34%
66% 66
Data Visualization
34 34%
66% 66
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 Recharts

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.

Recharts Reviews

6 JavaScript Charting Libraries for Powerful Data Visualizations in 2023
Naturally, it’s preferable if your chosen JS library uses the same frontend framework as the rest of your app. Apart from Recharts, which is a React library, all the libraries on our list are compatible with most popular frameworks. Their APIs make it easy to integrate charts into your apps or web pages.
Source: embeddable.com
15 JavaScript Libraries for Creating Beautiful Charts
Recharts is a composable charting library for building charts with decoupled, reusable React components. It’s built on top of SVG elements and D3.js. Check out the list of examples.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Recharts should be more popular than C3.js. It has been mentiond 18 times since March 2021. 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 / about 1 year 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: about 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
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Recharts mentions (18)

  • Demystifying npm package installation: Insights, analysis and optimization tips
    In order to run each scenario, there must be a package.json file present. For this analysis, we will use the following package.json file. This is a real package.json file, that I've used when creating a simple demo of Recharts library. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • A new way to make graphs more accessible to blind and low-vision readers
    I know the Recharts[1] library have been trying to make their charts more accessibility, but so far I haven't seen any users with screen readers give feedback. If there are any users here with screenreaders, can you read the chart on this link: https://www.chartmaker.io/charts/Ra1UTI7gArCTO0o2MV4zZ [1]: https://recharts.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • Ask HN: What's the best charting library for customer-facing dashboards?
    Chartjs looks great, but I've never used it so can't recommend personally. I've used https://recharts.org a lot with success. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Complete Tutorial: React Admin Panel with refine and daisyUI
    We first build the dashboard page where we present stats for relevant KPIs in cards, charts and a table. We use the React-based Recharts library for plotting our data. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Climate Change Tracker
    For the charts a heavily customized version of recharts (https://recharts.org/) and for the globe threejs (https://threejs.org). - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing C3.js and Recharts, 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.

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.

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

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

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.