Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Chart.js VS Recharts

Compare Chart.js VS Recharts and see what are their differences

Chart.js logo Chart.js

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

Recharts logo Recharts

Redefined chart library built with React and D3
  • Chart.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-13
  • Recharts Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-13

Chart.js features and specs

  • Open Source
    Chart.js is open source and free to use, which makes it accessible for both personal and commercial projects without any licensing costs.
  • Ease of Use
    Chart.js is known for its simple and easy-to-use API. Developers can quickly create charts by just including the library and writing minimal JavaScript.
  • Lightweight
    The library is relatively lightweight compared to other charting libraries, which helps in maintaining the performance of web applications.
  • Responsive Design
    Charts created with Chart.js are responsive by default, ensuring that they look good on all devices, including desktops, tablets, and mobile phones.
  • Variety of Chart Types
    Chart.js supports a variety of chart types including line, bar, radar, pie, doughnut, and polar area charts, providing flexibility for different data visualization needs.
  • Customization
    Developers can customize the appearance of charts extensively through Chart.js options such as colors, labels, and tooltips.
  • Active Community
    Chart.js has an active community and a strong support base, which means that developers can easily find help, tutorials, and plugins to enhance functionality.

Possible disadvantages of Chart.js

  • Limited Advanced Features
    While Chart.js is good for basic and intermediate charting needs, it may lack some advanced features and customizations offered by more complex charting libraries like D3.js.
  • Performance Issues with Large Datasets
    Chart.js can struggle with performance when dealing with very large datasets or complex visualizations, which can result in slower rendering times.
  • Learning Curve for Customization
    Although the basic usage is straightforward, achieving deeper customizations can involve a steeper learning curve as it requires understanding the underlying JavaScript and options.
  • Limited Interactivity
    Interactivity options with Chart.js are somewhat limited compared to other libraries that offer more advanced interactive features.
  • Dependency on Canvas
    Charts are rendered using the HTML5 canvas element, which may not be as flexible as SVG-based rendering used by some other libraries.

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.

Chart.js videos

1.3: Graphing with Chart.js - Working With Data & APIs in JavaScript

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How to Build Ionic 4 Apps with Chart.js

Recharts videos

No Recharts videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Chart.js and Recharts)
Charting Libraries
83 83%
17% 17
Data Visualization
88 88%
12% 12
Data Dashboard
85 85%
15% 15
Javascript UI Libraries
73 73%
27% 27

User comments

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Reviews

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

Chart.js Reviews

6 JavaScript Charting Libraries for Powerful Data Visualizations in 2023
Of the free libraries on this list, ECharts has the widest range of chart types available, second only to D3. Unlike D3, ECharts also ranks highly on the user-friendliness scale, although some users find ApexCharts and Chart.js even easier to use. You can check out some examples of basic charts on ECharts.
Source: embeddable.com
5 top picks for JavaScript chart libraries
Chart.js is a chart library that is available as a client-side JavaScript package. There are also derivatives for other frontend frameworks, like React, Vue, and Angular. It displays the chart on an HTML canvas element.
Top 10 JavaScript Charting Libraries for Every Data Visualization Need
Chart.js is a simple yet quite flexible JavaScript library for data viz, popular among web designers and developers. It’s a great basic solution for those who don’t need lots of chart types and customization features but want their charts to look neat, clear and informative at a glance.
Source: hackernoon.com
A Complete Overview of the Best Data Visualization Tools
Chart.js uses HTML5 Canvas for output, so it renders charts well across all modern browsers. Charts created are also responsive, so it’s great for creating visualizations that are mobile-friendly.
Source: www.toptal.com
The Best Data Visualization Tools - Top 30 BI Software
Chart.js is better for smaller chart projects. It’s open source and small in size, supporting six different types of charts: bar, line, pie, radar, doughnut, and polar. You can also add or remove any of these 6 types to reduce your footprint. Chart.js uses HTML5 Canvas and ships with polyfills for IE6/7 support. Chart.js offers the ability to create simple charts quickly.
Source: improvado.io

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 seems to be a lot more popular than Chart.js. While we know about 18 links to Recharts, we've tracked only 1 mention of Chart.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.

Chart.js mentions (1)

  • Chart library for Svelte?
    Https://chartjs.org works well, but you have to call the update function yourself if you want to do some reactive updates. Source: almost 4 years ago

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 / 12 days 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 / 27 days 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 / over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Chart.js and Recharts, you can also consider the following products

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

Google Charts - Interactive charts for browsers and mobile devices.

ApexCharts - Open-source modern charting library 📊

Plotly - Low-Code Data Apps

AnyChart - Award-winning JavaScript charting library & Qlik Sense extensions from a global leader in data visualization! Loved by thousands of happy customers, including over 75% of Fortune 500 companies & over half of the top 1000 software vendors worldwide.