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D3.js VS ApexCharts

Compare D3.js VS ApexCharts 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.

ApexCharts logo ApexCharts

Open-source modern charting library 📊
  • 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.

  • 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.

D3.js

Website
d3js.org
$ Details
Platforms
JavaScript
Release Date
-

ApexCharts

$ Details
Platforms
Web Browser JavaScript
Release Date
2018 July

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.

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.

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.

Analysis of ApexCharts

Overall verdict

  • ApexCharts is a reputable and reliable choice for developers looking for a versatile charting library. Its ease of use and comprehensive feature set make it a solid option for both beginners and experienced developers.

Why this product is good

  • ApexCharts is a popular JavaScript charting library known for its simplicity, flexibility, and responsiveness. It offers a wide range of chart types and is highly customizable, making it suitable for various data visualization needs. The library is well-documented, has an active community, and integrates easily with popular frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular.

Recommended for

    Developers and data scientists who need to create interactive and responsive charts quickly. It's also suitable for teams working on projects that require visually appealing and highly customizable data visualizations.

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)

ApexCharts videos

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

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to D3.js and ApexCharts)
Charting Libraries
83 83%
17% 17
Data Dashboard
76 76%
24% 24
Data Visualization
81 81%
19% 19
Javascript UI Libraries
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 D3.js and ApexCharts

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...

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

Based on our record, D3.js seems to be a lot more popular than ApexCharts. While we know about 167 links to D3.js, we've tracked only 13 mentions of ApexCharts. 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 / 6 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 / 10 months 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 / 4 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 / 5 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: about 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 D3.js and ApexCharts, you can also consider the following products

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

Plotly - Low-Code Data Apps

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.

amCharts - Advanced javascript charting library that will suit any data visualization need

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.