Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Gephi VS Graphviz

Compare Gephi VS Graphviz and see what are their differences

Gephi logo Gephi

Gephi is an open-source software for visualizing and analyzing large networks graphs.

Graphviz logo Graphviz

Graphviz is open source graph visualization software. It has several main graph layout programs.
  • Gephi Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-18
  • Graphviz Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-18

Gephi features and specs

  • User-friendly Interface
    Gephi offers an intuitive and visually appealing interface that is relatively easy to navigate, even for beginners.
  • Interactive Visualization
    Users can manipulate the visualization of networks in real-time, offering a hands-on approach to data analysis.
  • Extensive Plugins
    Gephi supports a wide range of plugins that can extend its functionality, enabling users to customize their analysis and visualization needs.
  • High Performance
    Designed to handle large graphs efficiently, Gephi can process, visualize, and manage extensive datasets without significant performance issues.
  • Open Source
    Being open-source software, Gephi is freely available for anyone to use and modify, providing transparency and community-driven support.

Possible disadvantages of Gephi

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Despite its user-friendly interface, mastering Gephi's full functionality and features requires time and effort.
  • Limited Support for Dynamic Graphs
    Gephi's capabilities for handling dynamic, time-evolving networks are somewhat limited compared to static network analysis.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running complex analyses or visualizations can demand significant computational resources, which might be taxing on less powerful systems.
  • Occasional Stability Issues
    Users have reported instances where Gephi can crash or become unstable, particularly with very large datasets.
  • Inadequate Documentation
    While there are community resources available, official documentation for some advanced features and plugins can be lacking, making it difficult for users to fully leverage the tool.

Graphviz features and specs

  • Automated Layout
    Graphviz uses sophisticated algorithms to automatically produce visually appealing layouts for graphs, reducing the need for manual adjustments and saving time.
  • Customization
    Offers a range of customization options, allowing users to tweak the appearance of nodes, edges, labels, and overall graph style.
  • Versatility
    Supports multiple output formats including SVG, PNG, PDF, and PostScript, making it easy to integrate graphs into various types of documents and applications.
  • Integrations
    Graphviz can be integrated with multiple programming languages and platforms, such as Python, Perl, and web applications, increasing its usability across different environments.
  • Open Source
    Being open-source software, Graphviz is free to use, modify, and distribute, which makes it accessible for both personal and commercial projects.

Possible disadvantages of Graphviz

  • Steep Learning Curve
    New users may find the learning curve steep due to the detailed syntax and numerous configuration options available.
  • Performance Issues with Large Graphs
    Rendering very large and complex graphs can be slow, which may hinder real-time or interactive applications.
  • Limited Interactivity
    Graphviz-generated diagrams are static, lacking features like node dragging or dynamic updates, which are available in some modern visualization tools.
  • Error Handling
    Error messages and debugging can be less insightful, making it difficult for users to identify and fix issues in complex graphs.
  • Aesthetic Limitation
    While offering some aesthetic customization, it can be challenging to achieve more intricate or modern visual styles compared to dedicated graphic design tools.

Gephi videos

Basics of Scientific Literature Analysis, Part 4: Network analysis/visualization with Gephi

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Gephi Tutorial - How to use Gephi for Network Analysis
  • Tutorial - Gephi Tutorial on Network Visualization and Analysis

Graphviz videos

Graphviz - Make Diagrams - Ubuntu 10.10

More videos:

  • Review - Use Soot and Graphviz to Generate and Visualize Java Call Graphs

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Gephi and Graphviz)
Diagrams
48 48%
52% 52
Flowcharts
47 47%
53% 53
Data Visualization
100 100%
0% 0
Flow Charts And Diagrams
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 Gephi and Graphviz

Gephi Reviews

10 Best Learning Software in 2023
Visualization has been shown to have a significant effect on a person’s perceptual abilities in finding the properties of a network structure and related data. That is why Gephi is based on the principles of a good visualization tool, which says that it must be technically sophisticated and visually appealing, in addition to enabling current visualization and network...

Graphviz Reviews

Top 7 diagrams as code tools for software architecture
Graphviz is a graph visualization software for representing structural information as diagrams.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Graphviz should be more popular than Gephi. It has been mentiond 86 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.

Gephi mentions (33)

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Graphviz mentions (86)

  • Ask HN: What do you use to create diagrams?
    Depends on the diagram. But a lot of times it's OpenOffice Draw[1]. I might also use Archi[2] or GraphViz[3] depending on what I'm trying to do. [1]: https://www.openoffice.org/product/draw.html [2]: https://www.archimatetool.com/ [3]: https://graphviz.org. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • Fixing Left and Mutual Recursions in Grammars
    Isn't Graphviz [1] the standard tool for this? [1] https://graphviz.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • ClickHouse: The Key to Faster Insights
    EXPLAIN AST: With this clause, we can explore the Abstract Syntax Tree, we can also visualize this via Graphviz. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Blockdiag – simple diagram images generator – blockdiag 1.0 documentation
    While inactive blockdiag was small and nice for automatically annotating documentation. As you can see it hasn't been maintained for a few years. https://github.com/blockdiag/blockdiag With complex diagrams, I find good old PlantUML diagrams more useful if not as initially pretty as mermaid. Plus it will output archimate without having to touch that UI https://plantuml.com/ But really it is horses for courses.... - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Introduction to Haskell Diagrams
    Use a high-level language like Plant UML, D2, Graphviz which are good for the purpose they are designed for, but not for generic purpose diagramming. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Gephi and Graphviz, you can also consider the following products

yEd - yEd is a free desktop application to quickly create, import, edit, and automatically arrange diagrams. It runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Unix/Linux.

draw.io - Online diagramming application

KeyLines - The JavaScript toolkit for graph visualization

PlantUML - PlantUML is an open-source tool that uses simple textual descriptions to draw UML diagrams.

Dia - Dia is a GTK+ based diagram creation program for GNU/Linux, MacOS X, Unix, and Windows, and is released under the GPL license.

LucidChart - LucidChart is the missing link in online productivity suites. LucidChart allows users to create, collaborate on, and publish attractive flowcharts and other diagrams from a web browser.