Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Highcharts VS The Book of Shaders

Compare Highcharts VS The Book of Shaders and see what are their differences

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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

The Book of Shaders logo The Book of Shaders

Extensive guide through fragment shaders with live coding examples
  • Highcharts Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-16
  • The Book of Shaders Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-05

Highcharts features and specs

  • Customization
    Highcharts provides extensive options to customize chart appearance and functionality, allowing for a tailored and specific data visualization experience.
  • Cross-Browser Compatibility
    Highcharts ensures compatibility across a wide range of browsers, making charts accessible to users regardless of their browser preferences.
  • Wide Range of Chart Types
    Offers a broad spectrum of chart types, including line, bar, pie, scatter, and more, catering to various data visualization needs.
  • Interactive Features
    Includes numerous interactive features such as tooltips, zooming, and clickable points, enhancing user engagement with the data.
  • Strong Community and Support
    Has an active community and provides extensive documentation, forums, and professional support options to assist users in overcoming challenges.
  • Performance
    Optimized for high performance, allowing for the rendering of large datasets without significant lag or performance issues.
  • Exporting and Sharing
    Built-in options for exporting charts to various formats (PNG, JPEG, PDF, etc.) and sharing them easily.

Possible disadvantages of Highcharts

  • Cost
    Highcharts is not free for commercial use, which may be a drawback for small businesses or individual developers with limited budgets.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    Despite comprehensive documentation, the abundance of features and customization options can result in a steeper learning curve for new users.
  • Dependency on JavaScript
    As a JavaScript library, Highcharts requires a solid understanding of JavaScript, making it less accessible for developers not familiar with the language.
  • Limited Free Support
    While there is a free support forum, professional support options are paid, which can be a limitation for users needing urgent assistance without extra costs.
  • Mobile Responsiveness
    Although Highcharts provides some support for mobile responsiveness, achieving optimal performance and displays on all device types may require additional customization.

The Book of Shaders features and specs

  • Comprehensive Introduction
    The Book of Shaders provides a thorough introduction to the fundamentals of shader programming, making it accessible for beginners.
  • Interactive Examples
    It includes interactive examples that allow readers to experiment with code snippets in real-time, enhancing the learning experience through hands-on practice.
  • Clear Explanations
    The book offers clear and concise explanations of complex concepts, helping readers to grasp tricky topics more easily.
  • Open Source
    Being an open-source resource, it is freely available to anyone interested, promoting wider accessibility and learning opportunities.
  • Gradual Progression
    The content is structured to gradually increase in complexity, enabling learners to build their knowledge step-by-step.

Possible disadvantages of The Book of Shaders

  • Advanced Topics
    It may not cover some advanced topics in-depth, which could require readers to seek additional resources for more complex shader programming concepts.
  • Online Format Limitations
    As an online resource, it may not be as convenient for some users who prefer physical books or offline materials for study.
  • Limited Context
    The book focuses specifically on GLSL shaders and may not provide broader context or applications in different graphics programming environments.
  • Assumes Basic Graphics Knowledge
    Some sections might assume a basic understanding of graphics programming, which could be challenging for absolute beginners without any prior exposure.

Analysis of Highcharts

Overall verdict

  • Highcharts is a strong choice for those seeking a robust and feature-rich charting library. Its popularity among developers and businesses stems from its reliability and comprehensive feature set.

Why this product is good

  • Highcharts is considered good because it offers a wide range of chart types and is highly customizable. It is known for its detailed documentation, ease of use, and cross-platform compatibility. Additionally, Highcharts provides extensive support and a variety of integrations with popular frameworks, making it a versatile choice for developers.

Recommended for

  • Developers looking for a user-friendly and customizable charting library.
  • Projects that require extensive interactive data visualizations.
  • Businesses that need a reliable and professionally supported charting solution.
  • Teams using web technologies and frameworks like Angular, React, or Vue for front-end development.

Analysis of The Book of Shaders

Overall verdict

  • Yes, The Book of Shaders is highly regarded as a valuable resource for learning about shaders.

Why this product is good

  • The Book of Shaders is praised for its clear and concise explanations, making complex topics accessible for beginners. It provides interactive examples and exercises that help reinforce concepts and encourage experimentation. This structured approach facilitates both learning the fundamentals and exploring advanced shader techniques. Moreover, its online format allows for regular updates and community-contributed content.

Recommended for

    This resource is ideal for graphics programmers, game developers, digital artists, and anyone interested in real-time rendering and shader programming. Beginners and intermediate learners will find it particularly beneficial due to its approachable format and interactive elements.

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

The Book of Shaders videos

No The Book of Shaders videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Highcharts and The Book of Shaders)
Data Dashboard
100 100%
0% 0
3D
0 0%
100% 100
Data Visualization
100 100%
0% 0
VJ
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 Highcharts and The Book of Shaders

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

The Book of Shaders Reviews

We have no reviews of The Book of Shaders yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, The Book of Shaders seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 146 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.

Highcharts mentions (0)

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

The Book of Shaders mentions (146)

  • WebGL Water
    I like https://thebookofshaders.com/ . It’s unfinished and I don’t think it’s been updated in years, but what’s there is pretty good. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 month ago
  • Shadertoys Ported to Rust GPU
    FYI apparently the www.* link doesn't actually have the menu for some reason? It's just the world graphic and a blank menu bar. You need to visit http://thebookofshaders.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • Dissecting "Tiny Clouds" shadertoy (2017)
    Yes, but you can learn it! 1. Get inspired, get motivated. Shaders like these are breathtaking: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/l3cfW4 2. Watch "Learn to paint with mathematics" to see a simple shader being built gradually: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ifChJ0nJfM 3. Work through https://thebookofshaders.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Tiny Glade 'built' its way to >600k sold in a month
    The Book of Shaders (https://thebookofshaders.com/) perhaps? It's about shaders rather than geometry but it felt like a good introduction to generating things with programmatically. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Breaking Down the WebGL Triangle Setup
    In the code above we are creating both a vertexShader and fragmentShader constant and storing the shader code in them. The Book of Shaders is a great resource for learning how to write GLSL code. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Highcharts and The Book of Shaders, you can also consider the following products

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.

Shadertoy - Build shaders, share them, and learn from the best community.

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

SHADERed - Lightweight, full-featured desktop tool for creating and testing HLSL and GLSL shaders

Google Charts - Interactive charts for browsers and mobile devices.

GLSL Sandbox - An online GSGL Shader Gallery and live development tool.