Software Alternatives & Reviews

D3.js VS Highcharts

Compare D3.js VS Highcharts 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.

Highcharts logo Highcharts

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

  • Highcharts Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-16

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)

Highcharts videos

Angular 2 & HighCharts Quick-Tip: Dynamic Data & Draggable Points (2016)

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How to define the custom colors for Highcharts?
  • Review - Data Visualization HighCharts

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to D3.js and Highcharts)
Charting Libraries
60 60%
40% 40
Data Visualization
59 59%
41% 41
Data Dashboard
55 55%
45% 45
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 Highcharts

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...

Highcharts Reviews

6 JavaScript Charting Libraries for Powerful Data Visualizations in 2023
However, you might need to pay for additional packages to get exactly what you’re looking for. The Highcharts Core package includes all the essentials (like line, bar, area, and pie charts) but Maps, Gantt, and Stock chart packages are all extra. In terms of cost, this makes Highcharts somewhat less scalable, depending on the budget available for your project.
Source: embeddable.com
15 JavaScript Libraries for Creating Beautiful Charts
Highcharts is another very popular library for building graphs. It comes loaded with many different types of cool animations that are sufficient to attract many eyeballs to your website. Just like other libraries, Highcharts comes with many pre-built graphs like spline, area, areaspline, column, bar, pie, scatter, etc. The charts are responsive and mobile-ready. Besides,...
Best Data Visualization Tools
For companies that want to embed interactive visualizations in their online content, look no further than Datawrapper. Highcharts is another great option for embedding interactive content into your sites, though it’s not as easy for non-specialists as Datawrapper.
Source: neilpatel.com
Top 10 JavaScript Charting Libraries for Every Data Visualization Need
Highcharts is one of the most comprehensive and popular JavaScript charting libraries based on HTML5, rendering in SVG/VML. It is lightweight, supports a wide range of diverse chart types, and ensures high performance.
Source: hackernoon.com
The Best Data Visualization Tools - Top 30 BI Software
Highcharts is a battle-tested SVG-based, multi-platform charting library that has been actively developed since 2009. Its JavaScript API integrates easily, and features robust documentation, advanced responsiveness and industry-leading accessibility support. You can add interactive, mobile-optimized charts to your web and mobile projects. Charts are rendered in SVG and a VML...
Source: improvado.io

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, D3.js seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 159 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.

D3.js mentions (159)

  • A visual guide to Vision Transformer – A scroll story
    Yes this was done with a combination of GSAP Scrolltrigger https://gsap.com/docs/v3/Plugins/ScrollTrigger/ and https://d3js.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 9 days ago
  • Full Stack Web Development Concept map
    d3 - very power visualization library enabling dynamic visualizations. docs. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Observable 2.0, a static site generator for data apps
    Yep, Evidence is doing good work. We were most directly inspired by VitePress; we spent months rewriting both D3’s docs (https://d3js.org) and Observable Plot’s docs (https://observablehq.com/plot) in VitePress, and absolutely loved the experience. But we wanted a tool focused on data apps, dashboards, reports — observability and business intelligence use cases rather than documentation. Compared to Evidence, I’d... - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • What is the technology stack used to create these live charts?
    They are images so it could be any number of things, datawrapper, charts.js, d3.js to name a few options. Source: 5 months ago
  • Animated map showing frequency and location of births around the world [OC]
    I made this interactive visualization that attempts to show the real-time frequency and location of births around the world. A country’s annual births (i.e. The country’s population times its birthrate) were distributed across all of the populated locations in each country, weighted by the population distribution (i.e. More populated areas got a greater fraction of the births). Data Sources and... Source: 5 months ago
View more

Highcharts mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Highcharts yet. Tracking of Highcharts recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

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

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

Plotly - Low-Code Data Apps

Google Charts - Interactive charts for browsers and mobile devices.

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.

RAWGraphs - RAWGraphs is an open source app built with the goal of making the visualization of complex data...

ZingChart - ZingChart is a fast, modern, powerful JavaScript charting library for building animated, interactive charts and graphs. Bring on the big data!