Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Plotly VS Google Data Studio

Compare Plotly VS Google Data Studio and see what are their differences

Plotly logo Plotly

Low-Code Data Apps

Google Data Studio logo Google Data Studio

Data Studio turns your data into informative reports and dashboards that are easy to read, easy to share, and fully custom. Sign up for free.
  • Plotly Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-31
  • Google Data Studio Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-09

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.

Google Data Studio features and specs

  • Free to Use
    Google Data Studio is a free tool, making it accessible for individuals and businesses of all sizes.
  • Integration with Google Services
    Seamlessly integrates with other Google services like Google Analytics, Google Ads, and BigQuery, providing a unified data experience.
  • Customizable Reports
    Offers a high level of customization for dashboards and reports, allowing users to tailor visualizations to their specific needs.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    The intuitive drag-and-drop interface makes it easy for beginners to create and manage reports without needing advanced technical skills.
  • Real-Time Collaboration
    Supports real-time collaboration, allowing multiple users to work on the same report simultaneously, similar to other Google Workspace products.
  • Wide Range of Connectors
    Supports multiple data connectors, enabling integration with a variety of third-party applications and databases beyond Google services.

Possible disadvantages of Google Data Studio

  • Limited Advanced Features
    Lacks some advanced analytics and BI features found in more specialized tools, which may be a limitation for power users.
  • Performance Issues
    Reports with a large number of visualizations or complex queries can experience slow performance and increased load times.
  • Learning Curve
    While user-friendly, there is still a learning curve involved, especially for users who are new to data visualization tools.
  • Data Handling Limitations
    Handling very large datasets can be cumbersome, and there might be limitations in data extraction and processing capabilities.
  • Limited Export Options
    Exporting reports is somewhat limited, with fewer formats available compared to other BI tools, which might be a drawback for some users.
  • Dependence on Internet Connection
    Requires a stable internet connection to access and modify reports, which can be a hindrance in areas with poor connectivity.

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

Google Data Studio videos

5 Reasons Why Google Data Studio is Amazing

More videos:

  • Review - Why I switched to Google Data Studio
  • Review - I Evaluated 4 BI Tools: Power BI, Tableau, Google Data Studio, & Sisense. Here's What I Found.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Plotly and Google Data Studio)
Data Visualization
59 59%
41% 41
Data Dashboard
45 45%
55% 55
Business Intelligence
22 22%
78% 78
Charting Libraries
100 100%
0% 0

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 Google Data Studio

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.

Google Data Studio Reviews

25 Best Statistical Analysis Software
With its intuitive interface and extensive customization options, Google Data Studio makes it easy for users to create captivating visualizations of their data, regardless of their technical expertise.
11 Metabase Alternatives
Google Data Studio is a platform that acts as a Google drive and saves hundreds of files at a time and makes reports out of them for business needs. Data studio offers to add a bulk of data files at a time and this application will make a report that will save a lot of their time and helps them make better decisions for their businesses and other useful tasks. Representers...
Best Google Data Studio Alternatives (Self-Service BI)
Google Data Studio is a reporting tool that nicely integrates within GA360 ecosystem (alongside with Google BigQuery and Google Sheet) and evolving on a monthly basis with an intuitive interface to explore and build insights. And it's completely free.
5 Metabase Alternatives You Don't Need a PhD to Use
Google Data Studio is a free tool and amongst the more visualization-focused alternatives to Metabase. Google Data Studio helps convert data into shareable reports for better metrics, reporting, and communication.
8 Databox Alternatives: Which One Is The Best?
Basic visualization and reporting are easy with Google Data Studio. However, it does not support the flexibility and customizability of visualization. So lack of visualization can be considered as a disadvantage of Google Data Studio.
Source: hockeystack.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Plotly seems to be a lot more popular than Google Data Studio. While we know about 33 links to Plotly, we've tracked only 2 mentions of Google Data Studio. 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 (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 / 6 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

Google Data Studio mentions (2)

  • 5 tools for Core Web Vitals to measure and improve website UX
    A tool to visualize data, for example, based on reports like CrUX, is Data Studio. It allows you to create dashboards based on source files and thus capture trends in user behavior. - Source: dev.to / about 3 years ago
  • GCP solution for ML model management (ML Ops)?
    I'm guessing you're looking for a database product or something like Data Studio. Whats your use case? Source: over 3 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Plotly and Google Data Studio, 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.

Databox - Databox is an easy-to-use analytics platform that helps growing businesses centralize their data, and use it to make better decisions and improve performance.

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

Geckoboard - Get to know Geckoboard: Instant access to your most important metrics displayed on a real-time dashboard.

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

Microsoft Power BI - BI visualization and reporting for desktop, web or mobile