Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Plotly VS Panel

Compare Plotly VS Panel and see what are their differences

Plotly logo Plotly

Low-Code Data Apps

Panel logo Panel

High-level app and dashboarding solution for Python
  • Plotly Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-31
  • Panel Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-28

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.

Panel features and specs

  • Flexibility
    Panel provides a flexible framework for creating interactive web applications, dashboards, and complex visualizations using Python, allowing developers to leverage their existing Python code without needing to switch to JavaScript or another language.
  • Integration with HoloViz Ecosystem
    Panel integrates seamlessly with other HoloViz tools like HoloViews, GeoViews, and Datashader, enhancing its capabilities for building rich, data-visualization-centric applications.
  • Support for Multiple Backends
    It supports multiple backends, including Bokeh, Plotly, and Matplotlib, giving developers the flexibility to choose their preferred plotting library for rendering their visualizations.
  • Dynamic and Reactive Features
    Panel supports dynamic and reactive UI components that update automatically as data changes, facilitating the creation of interactive and live data applications.
  • Easy Deployment
    Applications built with Panel can be easily deployed on the web using various options, including deploying on Heroku, AWS, or with simple HTTP servers, which helps in transitioning from development to production.

Possible disadvantages of Panel

  • Steep Learning Curve
    For those unfamiliar with the HoloViz ecosystem or Python-based web development, there can be a steep learning curve associated with mastering Panel and its related tools.
  • Performance Limitations
    While Panel is powerful, it may not perform as well as JavaScript-native solutions for extremely high-frequency, real-time data updates due to the overhead of Python-to-JavaScript communication.
  • Limited Community and Resources
    Although growing, the community and resources are not as extensive as some other more-established frameworks like React or Angular, which may lead to a lack of readily available support or third-party plugins.
  • Complexity with Large Applications
    As applications grow in size and complexity, managing state and ensuring efficient communication between components can become challenging.
  • Dependency on Python Environment
    Panel applications require a running Python environment, which can complicate deployment or hosting compared to purely static or client-side applications.

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

Panel videos

Ready To Love S7 E8 PANEL REVIEW WITH SPECIAL GUEST #readytolove

More videos:

  • Review - Solar Panel Shenanigans Bluetti Review
  • Review - BLUETTI PV420 420w Water Resistant Portable Solar Panel Review

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Plotly and Panel)
Data Visualization
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Data Dashboard
100 100%
0% 0
Web App
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 Panel

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.

Panel Reviews

We have no reviews of Panel yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Plotly should be more popular than Panel. It has been mentiond 33 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.

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 / 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 / 12 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

Panel mentions (10)

  • Show HN: Manganite – Quickly turn Jupyter notebooks into web apps
    Manganite allows easy conversion of Jupyter notebooks into dashboards. Simply annotate existing notebooks with Jupyter magics and serve them as interactive web apps. Manganite has been created to empower master and doctoral students in econ and management to turn research notebooks into interactive dashboards. The students use Python for data analysis, math programming, and basic machine learning. Instead of... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • What python library you are using for interactive visualisation?(other than plotly)
    Https://panel.holoviz.org/ It's a web app framework for Python similar to what Dash does for plotly. It plays nicely with bokeh visuals and I think the front-end is built using bokeh css elements. Source: about 2 years ago
  • How to approach GIS and which language to use
    If you want to build Python dashboards, look at the solara (react-style lib, https://solara.dev/) and panel (https://panel.holoviz.org/). Source: about 2 years ago
  • Ask HN: Fastest way to turn a Jupyter notebook into a website these days?
    My suggestion is https://panel.holoviz.org/ Fully open sourced, makes it easy to make reactive apps with small changes, can even configured as a graphical REPL. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • Updating a page with MQTT
    I am doing something like this in a [panel](https://panel.holoviz.org/) dashboard, which I am currently converting to nicegui. Maybe I can provide an example in some days. Source: about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Plotly and Panel, 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.

Streamlit - Turn python scripts into beautiful ML tools

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

Dash by Plotly - Dash is a Python framework for building analytical web applications. No JavaScript required.

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

Turtle - New kind of anonymous messaging app