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D3.js VS AG Grid

Compare D3.js VS AG Grid and see what are their differences

D3.js logo 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.

AG Grid logo AG Grid

The best HTML5 datagrid in the world
  • D3.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-11

D3 allows you to bind arbitrary data to a Document Object Model (DOM), and then apply data-driven transformations to the document. For example, you can use D3 to generate an HTML table from an array of numbers. Or, use the same data to create an interactive SVG bar chart with smooth transitions and interaction.

D3 is not a monolithic framework that seeks to provide every conceivable feature. Instead, D3 solves the crux of the problem: efficient manipulation of documents based on data. This avoids proprietary representation and affords extraordinary flexibility, exposing the full capabilities of web standards such as HTML, SVG, and CSS. With minimal overhead, D3 is extremely fast, supporting large datasets and dynamic behaviors for interaction and animation. D3’s functional style allows code reuse through a diverse collection of official and community-developed modules.

  • AG Grid Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-02

D3.js features and specs

  • Powerful Visualization
    D3.js allows for the creation of highly customized and interactive data visualizations, harnessing the full power of web standards like SVG, Canvas, and HTML.
  • Data Binding
    It offers robust support for data-driven transformations and binding, enabling intuitive connections between data sets and DOM elements.
  • Community and Ecosystem
    A large and active community contributes to tutorials, plugins, and tools, which can significantly simplify the development process.
  • Flexibility
    D3.js is highly flexible, providing low-level manipulation capabilities without being tied to any specific chart types or patterns.
  • Performance
    It is highly optimized for performance, allowing for efficient rendering of complex visualizations even with large data sets.

Possible disadvantages of D3.js

  • Steep Learning Curve
    D3.js has a steep learning curve due to its low-level nature and requires a solid understanding of JavaScript, DOM manipulation, and data concepts.
  • Complexity
    Creating complex visualizations can be time-consuming and require a significant amount of custom code, making it less approachable for quick, simple tasks.
  • Browser Compatibility
    Although widely supported, some D3.js features may have inconsistent behavior across different browsers, requiring additional testing and debugging.
  • Documentation
    While extensive, D3.js documentation can be challenging for beginners to navigate and understand, causing misunderstandings and slower development times.
  • Dependency Management
    The library itself is modular, but managing dependencies and integrating D3.js with other JavaScript frameworks or libraries can sometimes be problematic.

AG Grid features and specs

  • Highly Customizable
    AG Grid provides extensive customization options to tailor the grid's appearance and behavior, allowing developers to adjust the grid according to specific project requirements.
  • Rich Feature Set
    It offers a comprehensive set of features including filtering, sorting, grouping, and pivoting, which can cater to complex data visualization needs.
  • Performance
    AG Grid is optimized for handling large datasets efficiently, providing smooth scrolling and quick data operations without significant lag.
  • Wide Range of Integrations
    It supports integration with major frontend frameworks like Angular, React, and Vue, enabling seamless incorporation into diverse tech stacks.
  • Community and Enterprise Editions
    AG Grid offers both free and paid versions, allowing users to choose based on budget and feature requirements, with enterprise options including additional advanced features.

Possible disadvantages of AG Grid

  • Complexity
    Due to its extensive feature set, AG Grid has a steep learning curve, which can be overwhelming for beginners.
  • Size
    The library can be quite large, potentially affecting the initial load time of applications that require quick startup performance.
  • Cost for Enterprise Features
    To access the most advanced features, users need to purchase the enterprise version, which may not be feasible for small projects or teams with limited budgets.
  • Overhead for Simple Use Cases
    For projects that require only basic grid functionalities, AG Grid might be overkill, leading to unnecessary complexity and resource usage.
  • Documentation Depth
    While documentation is generally comprehensive, it can sometimes lack depth in explaining specific use cases or advanced customization, requiring additional time for exploration and experimentation.

Analysis of D3.js

Overall verdict

  • Yes, D3.js is a highly regarded library for data visualization in the web development community.

Why this product is good

  • Flexibility: D3.js provides incredible flexibility in creating complex and interactive visualizations with web standards (SVG, HTML, and CSS).
  • Customization: It allows for high levels of customization, which lets developers create unique and detailed visualizations tailored to their specific needs.
  • Community and Ecosystem: D3.js has a large, active community and a rich ecosystem of plugins and extensions conducive to learning and integration.
  • Data Binding: Offers powerful ways to manipulate documents based on data; the data-driven approach simplifies dynamic interaction creation.
  • Performance: Efficiently manipulates DOM elements and performs well with large datasets if used correctly.

Recommended for

  • Data Scientists and Analysts looking to create custom, interactive visualizations.
  • Web Developers who need to incorporate complex data visualizations into applications.
  • Educators and Researchers presenting data in an engaging way.
  • Anyone needing to build bespoke visualizations that are not possible with off-the-shelf solutions.

D3.js videos

Data Visualization with D3.js - Full Tutorial Course

More videos:

  • Review - Let's learn D3.js - D3 for data visualization (full course)

AG Grid videos

ag-Grid Conf 2018 | Complexity and Performance | Niall Crosby

More videos:

  • Review - All about ag-grid in angular 6
  • Review - Track 1 Day 2 Livestream | AngularConnect 2019 | Sponsored by ag-Grid

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to D3.js and AG Grid)
Charting Libraries
100 100%
0% 0
Data Grid
0 0%
100% 100
Data Visualization
100 100%
0% 0
Design Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare D3.js and AG Grid

D3.js Reviews

6 JavaScript Charting Libraries for Powerful Data Visualizations in 2023
Depending on your requirements, the best JavaScript library is D3.js, as it’s by far the most customizable. However, it’s also really complex and difficult to master. Plus, it’s not as compatible with TypeScript as it is with JavaScript, which can be off-putting for some developers. If you’d prefer a less complex library that you can use with TypeScript, ECharts, and...
Source: embeddable.com
15 JavaScript Libraries for Creating Beautiful Charts
When we think of charting today, D3.js is the first name that comes up. Being an open source project, D3.js definitely brings many powerful features that were missing in most of the existing libraries. Features like dynamic properties, Enter and Exit, powerful transitions, and syntax familiarity with jQuery make it one the best JavaScript libraries for charting. Charts in...
Top 20 Javascript Libraries
D3 stands for Data-Driven Documents. With D3, you can apply data-driven transformations to DOM objects. The keyword with D3 is ‘data-driven,’ which means documents are manipulated depending on the data received. Data can be received in any format and bound with DOM objects. D3 is very fast and supports dynamic behavior for animation and interactions. There are plenty of...
Source: hackr.io
20+ JavaScript libraries to draw your own diagrams (2022 edition)
D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. Right now, I would say is the most popular library of its kind.
15 data science tools to consider using in 2021
Another open source tool, D3.js is a JavaScript library for creating custom data visualizations in a web browser. Commonly known as D3, which stands for Data-Driven Documents, it uses web standards, such as HTML, Scalable Vector Graphics and CSS, instead of its own graphical vocabulary. D3's developers describe it as a dynamic and flexible tool that requires a minimum amount...

AG Grid Reviews

Using AG Grid in React: Guide and alternatives
In this guide, we introduced the basic functionalities of the ag-grid-react library and demonstrated how to use AG Grid to build and style a data grid in a React app. To compare alternatives to AG Grid, also built a similar data grid in TanStack Table, Glide Data Grid, and MUI Data Grid. Each library has a unique set of features and tradeoffs, so it’s important to choose the...
The Best React Data Grid/Table Libraries with Material Design in 2023 - MRT Blog
The "AG" in AG Grid stands for "Agnostic Grid," which means that the library works in multiple JavaScript Frameworks besides React. On the same note, though, AG Grid does not use Material UI under the hood like all of the other libraries on this list. However, it does stick very close to Material Design, so it will not stick out too far from the rest of the components in...
Best Free and Open-Source JavaScript Data Grid Libraries and Widgets
AG Grid calls itself the best JavaScript library for creating data tables, and for good reason. Major highlights of the library include its excellent performance, no dependency on third-party libraries, and smooth integration with all the major JavaScript frameworks such as Angular, React, and Vue.js. This goes without saying, but you can also use the library with plain...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, D3.js seems to be a lot more popular than AG Grid. While we know about 167 links to D3.js, we've tracked only 10 mentions of AG Grid. 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.

D3.js mentions (167)

  • IO Devices and Latency
    Do you mean something for data visualization, or tricks condensing large data sets with cursors? https://d3js.org/ Best of luck =3. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • 2024 Nuxt3 Annual Ecosystem Summary🚀
    Document address: D3.js Official Document. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • 100+ Must-Have Web Development Resources
    D3.js: One of the most popular JavaScript visualization libraries. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • What are npm Peer Dependencies and how to use them?
    A Dependency is an npm package that our code depends on in order to be able to run. Some popular packages that can be added as dependencies are lodash, D3, and chartjs. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Introducing RacingBars 📊
    RacingBars is an open-source, light-weight (~45kb gzipped), easy-to-use, and feature-rich javascript library for bar chart race, based on D3.js. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
View more

AG Grid mentions (10)

  • My Failed Student Housing App
    I made extensive use of AG Grid. There are LiveView hooks and whatnot showing how I loaded data, and stylized different types like bools, links, and status. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Supporting Circularly Referenced Mapped Types in Typescript
    In the remainder of this post I will share how I resolved this error for a type called NestedFieldPaths that is a key part of the AG Grid library. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Generate array of all an interface's keys with Typescript
    When working with a large and complex code base like AG Grid it is very easy to miss updating certain parts of the code base. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Does Angular Support Generic Component Types?
    To give a concrete example of the breakdown in inference we can look at the ag-grid-angular component from AG Grid. This component is generic with respect to row data. It is defined in the following way with many properties omitted for brevity. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Write Typescript in the browser with SystemJs
    Yes, this does require you to get your SystemJs config setup right but that is why I am sharing this starter that I used for our AG Grid demos so that you can get started easily. - Source: dev.to / over 3 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing D3.js and AG Grid, you can also consider the following products

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

Handsontable - JavaScript Spreadsheet

Plotly - Low-Code Data Apps

Bryntum - High performance web components for SaaS apps - including Gantt, Scheduler, Grid, Calendar and Kanban widgets. Seamless integration with React, Vue, Angular or plain JS apps.

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

TanStack Table - Headless UI for building powerful tables & datagrids with TS/JS, React, Solid, Svelte and Vue