Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Plotly VS Apache Arrow

Compare Plotly VS Apache Arrow and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Plotly logo Plotly

Low-Code Data Apps

Apache Arrow logo Apache Arrow

Apache Arrow is a cross-language development platform for in-memory data.
  • Plotly Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-31
  • Apache Arrow Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-03

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.

Apache Arrow features and specs

  • In-Memory Columnar Format
    Apache Arrow stores data in a columnar format in memory which allows for efficient data processing and analytics by enabling operations on entire columns at a time.
  • Language Agnostic
    Arrow provides libraries in multiple languages such as C++, Java, Python, R, and more, facilitating cross-language development and enabling data interchange between ecosystems.
  • Interoperability
    Arrow's ability to act as a data transfer protocol allows easy interoperability between different systems or applications without the need for serialization or deserialization.
  • Performance
    Designed for high performance, Arrow can handle large data volumes efficiently due to its zero-copy reads and SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) operations.
  • Ecosystem Integration
    Arrow integrates well with various data processing systems like Apache Spark, Pandas, and more, making it a versatile choice for data applications.

Possible disadvantages of Apache Arrow

  • Complexity
    The use of Apache Arrow can introduce additional complexity, especially for smaller projects or those which do not require high-performance data interchange.
  • Learning Curve
    Getting accustomed to Apache Arrow can take time due to its unique in-memory format and APIs, especially for developers who are new to columnar data processing.
  • Memory Usage
    While Arrow excels in speed and performance, the memory consumption can be higher compared to row-based storage formats, potentially becoming a bottleneck.
  • Maturity
    Although rapidly evolving, some Arrow components or language implementations may not be as mature or feature-complete, potentially leading to limitations in certain use cases.
  • Integration Challenges
    While Arrow aims for broad compatibility, integrating it into existing systems may require substantial effort, affecting development timelines.

Analysis of Plotly

Overall verdict

  • Overall, Plotly is a strong choice for those looking to create dynamic and interactive data visualizations, thanks to its range of features and ease of integration with web technologies.

Why this product is good

  • Plotly is considered good because it offers a comprehensive suite of tools for creating interactive visualizations that can be used in web applications, reports, and dashboards. It supports many different types of plots, is easy to use for both beginners and experienced developers, and integrates well with popular programming languages like Python, R, and JavaScript.

Recommended for

    Plotly is recommended for data scientists, analysts, and developers who need to create interactive and visually appealing data visualizations. It's particularly useful for those who work with Python or R and want the ability to embed their visualizations in web applications or dashboards.

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

Apache Arrow videos

Wes McKinney - Apache Arrow: Leveling Up the Data Science Stack

More videos:

  • Review - "Apache Arrow and the Future of Data Frames" with Wes McKinney
  • Review - Apache Arrow Flight: Accelerating Columnar Dataset Transport (Wes McKinney, Ursa Labs)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Plotly and Apache Arrow)
Data Visualization
100 100%
0% 0
Databases
0 0%
100% 100
Charting Libraries
100 100%
0% 0
Big Data
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 Plotly and Apache Arrow

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 thatโ€™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.

Apache Arrow Reviews

We have no reviews of Apache Arrow yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Apache Arrow might be a bit more popular than Plotly. We know about 40 links to it since March 2021 and only 34 links to Plotly. 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.

Plotly mentions (34)

  • How to Analyze 47 Million Hacker News Posts: A Data Scientist's Dream Dataset Just Got Better
    Let's dive into some practical examples. First, you'll need to set up your environment with the right tools. I recommend using pandas for data manipulation and plotly for visualization. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • 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 / over 1 year 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 / over 1 year ago
  • Build a Stock Dashboard in less than 40 lines of Python code!๐Ÿค“
    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 / over 1 year 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 / about 2 years ago
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Apache Arrow mentions (40)

  • Show HN: Typed-arrow โ€“ compileโ€‘time Arrow schemas for Rust
    I had no idea what Arrow is: https://arrow.apache.org or arrow-rs: https://github.com/apache/arrow-rs. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Show HN: Pontoon, an open-source data export platform
    - Open source: Pontoon is free to use by anyone Under the hood, we use Apache Arrow (https://arrow.apache.org/) to move data between sources and destinations. Arrow is very performant - we wanted to use a library that could handle the scale of moving millions of records per minute. In the shorter-term, there are several improvements we want to make, like:. - Source: Hacker News / 12 months ago
  • Unlocking DuckDB from Anywhere - A Guide to Remote Access with Apache Arrow and Flight RPC (gRPC)
    Apache Arrow : It contains a set of technologies that enable big data systems to process and move data fast. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Using Polars in Rust for high-performance data analysis
    One of the main selling points of Polars over similar solutions such as Pandas is performance. Polars is written in highly optimized Rust and uses the Apache Arrow container format. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Kotlin DataFrame โค๏ธ Arrow
    Kotlin DataFrame v0.14 comes with improvements for reading Apache Arrow format, especially loading a DataFrame from any ArrowReader. This improvement can be used to easily load results from analytical databases (such as DuckDB, ClickHouse) directly into Kotlin DataFrame. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Plotly and Apache Arrow, 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.

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

RAWGraphs - RAWGraphs is an open source app built with the goal of making the visualization of complex data...

Apache Parquet - Apache Parquet is a columnar storage format available to any project in the Hadoop ecosystem.

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.

Apache Spark - Apache Spark is an engine for big data processing, with built-in modules for streaming, SQL, machine learning and graph processing.