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Matplotlib VS ggplot2

Compare Matplotlib VS ggplot2 and see what are their differences

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Matplotlib logo Matplotlib

matplotlib is a python 2D plotting library which produces publication quality figures in a variety...

ggplot2 logo ggplot2

Application and Data, Libraries, and Charting Libraries
  • Matplotlib Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-14
  • ggplot2 Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-02-27

Matplotlib features and specs

  • Versatility
    Matplotlib can generate a wide variety of plots, ranging from simple line plots to complex 3D plots. This versatility makes it a go-to library for many scientific and technical visualizations.
  • Customization
    It offers extensive customization options for virtually every element of a plot, including colors, labels, line styles, and more, allowing users to tailor plots to meet specific needs.
  • Integrations
    Matplotlib integrates well with other Python libraries such as NumPy, Pandas, and SciPy, making it easier to plot data directly from these sources.
  • Community and Documentation
    It has a large, active community and comprehensive documentation that includes tutorials, examples, and detailed references, which can help users solve problems and improve their plot-making skills.
  • Interactivity
    Matplotlib supports interactive plots, which can be embedded in Jupyter notebooks and GUIs, allowing for dynamic data exploration and presentation.
  • Publication-Quality
    The library is capable of producing high-quality, publication-ready graphics that meet the stringent requirements of academic journals and professional presentations.

Possible disadvantages of Matplotlib

  • Complexity
    While Matplotlib offers extensive customization, it can be complex and sometimes unintuitive for beginners, requiring a steep learning curve to master all its functionality.
  • Performance
    Rendering a large number of plots or handling very large datasets can be slow, making Matplotlib less suitable for real-time data visualization.
  • Modern Aesthetics
    Out-of-the-box plots from Matplotlib can look somewhat dated compared to those from newer plotting libraries like Seaborn or Plotly, requiring additional customization to achieve a modern look.
  • 3D Plots
    Although Matplotlib supports 3D plotting, its capabilities are relatively limited and less sophisticated compared to specialized 3D plotting libraries.
  • Size and Structure
    The package is relatively large and can be slow to import. Its extensive structure can make finding specific functions and understanding the overall architecture challenging.

ggplot2 features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Matplotlib videos

+ Add

Learn Matplotlib in 6 minutes | Matplotlib Python Tutorial

ggplot2 videos

+ Add

Learn R: An Introduction to ggplot2

More videos:

  • Review - Review ggplot2 Line Graph Exercise
  • Review - Code-through and review of Ggplot2 in 2

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Matplotlib and ggplot2)

Matplotlib

ggplot2

Technical Computing
88 88%
Technical Computing
12% 12
Data Science And Machine Learning
100 100%
Data Science And Machine Learning
0% 0
Data Visualization
81 81%
Data Visualization
19% 19
Data Dashboard
0 0%
Data Dashboard
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 Matplotlib and ggplot2

Matplotlib Reviews

25 Python Frameworks to Master
Matplotlib is a widely used tool for data visualization in Python. It provides an object-oriented API for embedding plots into applications.
Source: kinsta.com
5 Best Python Libraries For Data Visualization in 2023
You can use this library for multiple purposes such as generating plots, bar charts, histograms, power spectra, stemplots, pie charts, and more. The best thing about Matplotlib is you just have to write a few lines of code and it handles the rest by itself. Metaplotilib focuses on static images for publication along with interactive figures using toolkits like Qt and GTK.
Source: www.technotification.com
15 data science tools to consider using in 2021
Matplotlib is an open source Python plotting library that's used to read, import and visualize data in analytics applications. Data scientists and other users can create static, animated and interactive data visualizations with Matplotlib, using it in Python scripts, the Python and IPython shells, Jupyter Notebook, web application servers and various GUI toolkits.
Source: searchbusinessanalytics.techtarget.com
Top Python Libraries For Image Processing In 2021
Matplotlib is primarily used for 2D visualizations such as scatter plots, bar graphs, histograms, and many more, but we can also use it for image processing. It is effective to get information out of an image. It doesn’t support all file formats.
Source: www.analyticsvidhya.com
Top 8 Python Libraries for Data Visualization
Matplotlib is a data visualization library and 2-D plotting library of Python It was initially released in 2003 and it is the most popular and widely-used plotting library in the Python community. It comes with an interactive environment across multiple platforms. Matplotlib can be used in Python scripts, the Python and IPython shells, the Jupyter notebook, web application...
Source: www.geeksforgeeks.org

ggplot2 Reviews

5 Best Python Libraries For Data Visualization in 2023
ggplot is a system for creating graphics declaratively. It’s based on the Grammar of Graphics of R programming language and is tightly integrated with Pandas. ggplot just requires you to declare how to map the variables to aesthetics and primitives to use and handles the rest automatically. Remember, ggplot is not recommended for creating highly customized graphics.
Source: www.technotification.com
Top 8 Python Libraries for Data Visualization
Ggplot is a Python data visualization library that is based on the implementation of ggplot2 which is created for the programming language R. Ggplot can create data visualizations such as bar charts, pie charts, histograms, scatterplots, error charts, etc. using high-level API. It also allows you to add different types of data visualization components or layers in a single...
Source: www.geeksforgeeks.org

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Matplotlib should be more popular than ggplot2. It has been mentiond 107 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.

Matplotlib mentions (107)

  • Python for Data Visualization: Best Tools and Practices
    Matplotlib is the backbone of Python data visualization. It’s a flexible, reliable library for creating static plots. Whether you're making simple bar charts or complex graphs, Matplotlib allows extensive customization. You can adjust nearly every aspect of a plot to suit your needs. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Build a Competitive Intelligence Tool Powered by AI
    Add data visualization to make it actionable for your business using pandas.pydata.org and matplotlib.org. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Data Visualisation Basics
    Matplotlib: a versatile library for visualizations, but it can take some code effort to put together common visualizations. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Creating a CSV to Graph Generator App Using ToolJet and Python Libraries
    In this tutorial, we'll create a CSV to Graph Generator app using ToolJet and Python code. This app enables users to upload a CSV file and generate various types of graphs, including line, scatter, bar, histogram, and box plots. Since ToolJet supports Python (and JavaScript) code out of the box, we'll incorporate Python code and the matplotlib library to handle the graph generation. Additionally, we'll use... - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Something is strange with CrowdStrike timeline
    It looks like matplotlib to me: https://matplotlib.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
View more

ggplot2 mentions (11)

  • Ask HN: What plotting tools should I invest in learning?
    For random, quick and dirty, ad-hoc plotting tasks my default is GNUPlot[1]. Otherwise I tend to use either Python with matplotlib, or R with ggplot2. I keep saying I'm going to invest the time to properly learn D3[4] or something similar for doing web-based plotting, but somehow never quite seem to find time to do it. sigh [1]: http://www.gnuplot.info/ [2]: https://matplotlib.org/ [3]:... - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Relative frequency of letters in five-letter English words (Wordle aid) [OC]
    I got the list of five-letter words from the words package in R, created the QWERTY keyboard grid with base R and tibble, and visualized the data with geom_tile in the ggplot2 package. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • [OC] U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges: 2002 to 2023
    Thanks, it's an interesting idea! I definitely could implement this with scale_fill_gradientn) in ggplot2. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Facts about Aaron Boone's Ejections as Manager
    I used the ggplot2 package in R to create these figures. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Fueling Innovation and Collaborative Storytelling
    This might not be at the top of your list, but science fiction often presents advanced data analysis and visualization technologies. Open source data analysis tools such as Python's Pandas and R's ggplot2 have revolutionized the field, making complex data manipulation and visualization accessible to all. In the science fiction novel The Martian, astronaut Mark Watney uses a variety of data analysis and... - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Matplotlib and ggplot2, you can also consider the following products

Pandas - Pandas is an open source library providing high-performance, easy-to-use data structures and data analysis tools for the Python.

Plotly - Low-Code Data Apps

GnuPlot - Gnuplot is a portable command-line driven interactive data and function plotting utility.

Bokeh - Bokeh visualization library, documentation site.

NumPy - NumPy is the fundamental package for scientific computing with Python

Seaborn - Seaborn is a Python data visualization library that uses Matplotlib to make statistical graphics.

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