Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Flot VS Plotly

Compare Flot VS Plotly and see what are their differences

Flot logo Flot

Flot is a pure Javascript plotting library for jQuery.

Plotly logo Plotly

Low-Code Data Apps
  • Flot Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-12-12
  • Plotly Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-31

Flot features and specs

  • Lightweight
    Flot is known for being a very lightweight plotting library, which makes it ideal for applications where performance is critical and resources are limited.
  • Ease of Use
    Flot offers a simple API that is easy to use, making it accessible for developers to create basic charts without extensive experience in data visualization.
  • Extensible
    Flot is designed to be easily extended. Users can customize it and add plugins to enhance its functionality according to their specific needs.
  • Compatibility with jQuery
    Flot is built on top of jQuery, which means it integrates well in projects that already use this popular JavaScript library.
  • Good Documentation
    The library comes with decent documentation, providing useful examples and detailed explanations of its features.

Possible disadvantages of Flot

  • Limited Features
    Compared to other more modern libraries, Flot has fewer features and it may not support advanced chart types or interactions out of the box.
  • Performance with Large Datasets
    Flot's performance may degrade when dealing with very large datasets, as it was not optimized for big data handling.
  • Outdated
    Flot has not been actively maintained for some time, which means it might not support the latest web standards or integrate seamlessly with newer technologies.
  • Dependency on jQuery
    The reliance on jQuery can be seen as a drawback, especially for projects looking to minimize dependencies or use vanilla JS.
  • Lack of Interactivity
    Flot does not offer as much interactive capability as some newer charting libraries, potentially limiting user engagement with the data visualizations.

Plotly features and specs

  • Interactivity
    Plotly offers highly interactive plots that allow users to pan, zoom, and hover over data points for more information. This enhances the user experience and provides deeper insights.
  • High-quality visualizations
    It provides aesthetically pleasing and highly customizable charts, making it suitable for publication-quality visuals.
  • Versatility
    Plotly supports multiple chart types including line charts, scatter plots, bar charts, and 3D plots, making it suitable for a wide range of applications.
  • Python integration
    Plotly is well-integrated with Python and works seamlessly with other popular data science libraries like Pandas, NumPy, and Scikit-learn.
  • Web-based
    The plots can be easily embedded in web applications or dashboards, making it ideal for sharing insights over the internet.
  • Open-source
    Plotly offers an open-source version, which allows users to create and share visualizations without any cost.

Possible disadvantages of Plotly

  • Performance
    Rendering very large datasets can sometimes be slow, which may not be suitable for real-time data visualization requirements.
  • Learning curve
    Even though the library is well-documented, the extensive range of features can have a steep learning curve for beginners.
  • Cost for advanced features
    While the basic functionality is free, more advanced features, such as export to certain formats and additional customizable options, require a paid subscription.
  • Dependency management
    Plotly has a number of dependencies that need to be managed properly, which can sometimes complicate the setup process.
  • Complexity
    For simple visualizations, Plotly might be overkill and simpler libraries like Matplotlib or Seaborn could be more appropriate.

Flot videos

ETF Battles: Which Bond ETF is the Better Strategy for Rising Interest Rates? - FLOT vs. IVOL!

More videos:

  • Review - Goyard Petit Flot bag
  • Review - Unboxing│Goyard Petit Flot and what fits in

Plotly videos

Create Real-time Chart with Javascript | Plotly.js Tutorial

More videos:

  • Review - Introducing plotly.py 3.0
  • Review - Is Plotly The Better Matplotlib?
  • Tutorial - Plotly Tutorial 2021
  • Review - Data Visualization as The First and Last Mile of Data Science Plotly Express and Dash | SciPy 2021

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Flot and Plotly)
Charting Libraries
18 18%
82% 82
Data Visualization
0 0%
100% 100
Development
100 100%
0% 0
Data Dashboard
8 8%
92% 92

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Flot and Plotly

Flot Reviews

15 JavaScript Libraries for Creating Beautiful Charts
Flot supports lines, points, filled areas, bars and any combinations of these. It’s also compatible with older browsers — way back to IE6 and Firefox 2.

Plotly Reviews

Best 8 Redash Alternatives in 2023 [In Depth Guide]
Plotly is specifically designed for companies who want to build and deploy analytic applications like dashboards using Python, Julia, or R without needing DevOps or Javascript developers.
Source: www.datapad.io
5 Best Python Libraries For Data Visualization in 2023
Plotly is a web-based data visualization toolkit that comes with unique functionalities such as dendrograms, 3D charts, and also contour plots, which is not very common in other libraries. It has a great API offering scatter plots, line charts, bar charts, error bars, box plots, and other visualizations. Plotly can even be accessed from a Python Notebook.
Top 8 Python Libraries for Data Visualization
Plotly is a free open-source graphing library that can be used to form data visualizations. Plotly (plotly.py) is built on top of the Plotly JavaScript library (plotly.js) and can be used to create web-based data visualizations that can be displayed in Jupyter notebooks or web applications using Dash or saved as individual HTML files. Plotly provides more than 40 unique...
5 top picks for JavaScript chart libraries
Plotly is a graphing library that’s available for various runtime environments, including the browser. It supports many kinds of charts and graphs that we can configure with a variety of options.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Plotly seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 33 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.

Flot mentions (0)

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

Plotly mentions (33)

  • Python for Data Visualization: Best Tools and Practices
    Plotly is perfect for interactive visualizations. You can create interactive charts and graphs that allow users to hover, click, and zoom in. Plotly is also great for web-based visuals, making it easy to share your findings online. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Generative AI Powered QnA & Visualization Chatbot
    Front End: A React application that leverages React-Chatbotify library to easily integrate a chatbot GUI. It also uses the Plotly library to display the charts/visualizations. The generative AI implementation and details are entirely abstracted from the front end. The front-end application depends on a single REST endpoint of the backend application. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Build a Stock Dashboard in less than 40 lines of Python code!🤓
    In this tutorial, Mariya Sha will guide you through building a stock value dashboard using Taipy, Plotly, and a dataset from Kaggle. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Essential Deep Learning Checklist: Best Practices Unveiled
    How to Accomplish: Utilize visualization libraries like Matplotlib, Seaborn, or Plotly in Python to create histograms, scatter plots, and bar charts. For image data, use tools that visualize images alongside their labels to check for labeling accuracy. For structured data, correlation matrices and pair plots can be highly informative. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Python equivalent to power bi/power query?
    For dashboards: - https://plotly.com/ is probably my favourite, but there are others like streamlit, voila and others... Source: over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Flot and Plotly, you can also consider the following products

CanvasJS - HTML5 JavaScript, jQuery, Angular, React Charts for Data Visualization

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.

liveGap Charts - Free online charts. Easily create animated charts from your data.save your charts as image or HTML.

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

ChartBlocks - Import data, design and share a chart in minutes. Or seconds via the API.

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