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D3.js VS Redash

Compare D3.js VS Redash 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.

Redash logo Redash

Data visualization and collaboration tool.
  • 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.

  • Redash Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-22

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.

Redash features and specs

  • Open Source
    Redash is an open-source tool, allowing users to customize and extend its functionalities to suit their specific needs.
  • Cost
    As an open-source product, Redash can be used for free, making it cost-effective for organizations with limited budgets.
  • Data Source Integration
    Redash supports a wide range of data sources, including SQL databases, NoSQL databases, and cloud services, making it versatile for different data needs.
  • Query Editor
    Redash comes with a powerful query editor that supports SQL, which makes it easy for data analysts to write and execute queries.
  • Visualization Options
    Redash provides multiple visualization options such as bar charts, line charts, and pie charts to help users interpret data effectively.
  • Collaboration
    Redash allows multiple users to collaborate on queries and dashboards, fostering teamwork within organizations.
  • Alerting
    Users can set up alerts to notify them when certain data conditions are met, enabling proactive decision-making.

Possible disadvantages of Redash

  • User Interface
    The user interface of Redash can be less intuitive, especially for new users who are not familiar with data analytics tools.
  • Scalability
    Redash might face performance issues when dealing with very large datasets or a high number of simultaneous queries.
  • Community Support
    Being an open-source product, Redash relies heavily on community support, which can be inconsistent and slower compared to commercial products with dedicated support teams.
  • Advanced Features
    Compared to more established BI tools, Redash may lack some advanced features and functionalities like detailed user access controls and more complex data transformations.
  • Documentation
    The documentation for Redash can be lacking or outdated, making it challenging for users to find the information they need.
  • Deployment Complexity
    Setting up and maintaining a Redash instance can be complex and require a good understanding of infrastructure management.

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 Redash

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Redash is considered good for users who need a straightforward, yet powerful, tool for data visualization and exploration. Its ease of use, combined with the capabilities to support various data sources, makes it a solid choice for companies and data teams.

Why this product is good

  • Redash is well-regarded for its simplicity and powerful visualization capabilities. It is an open-source platform that allows users to connect to a wide range of data sources, create dashboards, and share insights easily. It provides users with the flexibility to write SQL queries to fetch data and then visualize it in an interactive and intuitive manner. Redash's support for multiple data source connections, along with its collaborative features, makes it a great tool for teams looking to leverage data efficiently.

Recommended for

  • Data Analysts
  • Business Intelligence Teams
  • Organizations looking for an open-source data visualization tool
  • Teams needing collaboration features for data-driven decision making
  • Users with SQL knowledge needing flexible query capabilities

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)

Redash videos

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

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to D3.js and Redash)
Charting Libraries
100 100%
0% 0
Data Dashboard
64 64%
36% 36
Data Visualization
71 71%
29% 29
Business Intelligence
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 Redash

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...

Redash Reviews

6 Best Looker alternatives
Accessibility: Though it also requires support from your data team, Looker is more targeted to non-tech users than Redash, since Redash requires SQL expertise.
Source: trevor.io
Best 8 Redash Alternatives in 2023 [In Depth Guide]
So all-in-all, Redash is meant for users who have the technical knowledge and depend a lot on KPIs, and Datapad is for users and businesses who just want an overview of KPI performance but quickly.
Source: www.datapad.io
8 Alternatives to Apache Superset That’ll Empower Start-ups and Small Businesses with BI
Small businesses and startups with limited resources that need to answer simple queries will find Metabase, Tableau, and PowerBI suitable for their needs. However, if you have an in-house data team dedicated to the project, you might find open-source software like Redash and Metabase (open-source version) beneficial. And if you have the team, time, and money, Looker or...
Source: trevor.io
Top 10 Tableau Open Source Alternatives: A Comprehensive List
With Redash, you can integrate with Data Warehouses more quickly, write SQL queries to pull subsets of data for visualizations, and share dashboards more easily. Its SQL interface is especially easy to use for anyone who is familiar with SQL Server Management Studio or any querying GUI tool for databases. It also provides support for over 20+ data sources and allows users to...
Source: hevodata.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, D3.js should be more popular than Redash. It has been mentiond 167 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 (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
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Redash mentions (19)

  • Tool or service for querying and exposing database through API
    I am looking for service or tool similiar to Metabase or Redash that allows me to add data source - for example Postgres connection, and create raw SQL queries that can be shared or exposed through API. So instead of keeping raw SQL code somewhere, my other service would call this tool e.g. http://microservice/query=1?param1=xx&page=2 and get the results from the DB. These calls are internal only and part of ETL... Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Did anyone try Openblocks for multi-tenant client reporting?
    I have tried Metabase, Redash beore (both self hosted open source versions), from my experience I find Metabase a bit easy to work with. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Best apps for transitioning from Spreadsheets to SQLite?
    Regarding visualization tools, sqliteviz has proven to be the best I've found so far. Their web app runs locally but has some trackers, so I run it locally via a simple, static HTTP server. Falcon and Redash seem like overkill for my needs. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Framework Laptops are now Thunderbolt 4 certified
    In addition to metabase there are redash[0] and apache superset[1]. They are more or less similar to metabase with some different quirks. You can also visualize quite a bit of data in grafana[2] as well. [0] https://redash.io/ [1] https://superset.apache.org/ [2] https://github.com/grafana/grafana. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • How to program an appealing data visualization, that automatically synchronizes itself? (Picture in comments)
    This is typically called a "dashboard" and there is a whole industry of existing commercial products (for example https://redash.io/) that are built around doing data analysis and visualization. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

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

Microsoft Power BI - BI visualization and reporting for desktop, web or mobile

Plotly - Low-Code Data Apps

Tableau - Tableau can help anyone see and understand their data. Connect to almost any database, drag and drop to create visualizations, and share with a click.

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

Metabase - Metabase is the easy, open source way for everyone in your company to ask questions and learn from...