Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Plotly VS Plotly.js

Compare Plotly VS Plotly.js and see what are their differences

Plotly logo Plotly

Low-Code Data Apps

Plotly.js logo Plotly.js

Open-source JavaScript charting library behind Plotly and Dash - plotly/plotly.js
  • Plotly Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-31
  • Plotly.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-26

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.

Plotly.js features and specs

  • Interactive Visualizations
    Plotly.js provides highly interactive charting capabilities, allowing users to hover, zoom, and pan easily within charts, enhancing the user experience.
  • Wide Range of Chart Types
    The library supports a comprehensive variety of chart types, from simple line and bar charts to more complex types like histograms, scatter plots, and even 3D and geographic plots.
  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    Plotly.js works seamlessly across different platforms and browsers, ensuring consistent chart rendering and functionality whether used on desktops or mobile devices.
  • Customizable
    Users have a high degree of control over the appearance and behavior of plots, with numerous options to customize colors, legends, tooltips, and more.
  • Integration with Dash
    Plotly.js integrates well with the Dash framework, enabling the creation of interactive web applications that are highly visual and data-driven.

Possible disadvantages of Plotly.js

  • Performance Concerns
    Rendering very large datasets can be slow, potentially impacting the performance of the application, particularly in resource-constrained environments.
  • Complexity
    For users new to the library, the learning curve can be steep due to the extensive options and configurations available.
  • Size of Library
    Plotly.js has a relatively large file size, which can be a concern for web applications where minimizing load times and data transfer is critical.
  • Limited Free Features
    Certain advanced features and functionalities may require a paid subscription to Plotly's services, which may not be ideal for all users or projects.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing dependencies and ensuring compatibility with other JavaScript libraries can sometimes pose challenges, especially in complex 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

Plotly.js videos

[Beginner] Simple Bar Chart | React Plotly.js

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Create Real-time Chart with Javascript | Plotly.js Tutorial

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Plotly and Plotly.js)
Data Visualization
95 95%
5% 5
Charting Libraries
86 86%
14% 14
Libraries
0 0%
100% 100
Data Dashboard
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 Plotly.js

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.

Plotly.js Reviews

15 JavaScript Libraries for Creating Beautiful Charts
Plotly.js is the first scientific JavaScript charting library for the web. It has been open-source since 2015, meaning anyone can use it for free. Plotly.js supports 20 chart types, including SVG maps, 3D charts, and statistical graphs. Itโ€™s built on top of D3.js and stack.gl.
Top 10 JavaScript Charting Libraries for Every Data Visualization Need
Plotly.js is a high-level JavaScript library, free and open-source. It is built on D3.js and WebGL, so can be used to create many different chart types including 3D charts to statistical graphs.
Source: hackernoon.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Plotly should be more popular than Plotly.js. It has been mentiond 34 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 (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 / 5 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
View more

Plotly.js mentions (4)

  • Weekly JavaScript Roundup: Friday Links 17, February 07, 2025
    Plotly.js - Open-source JavaScript charting library behind Plotly and Dash. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Ask HN: What packages can be used to create interactive mathematics simulations?
    Well, MathML[1] support is (nearly) everywhere now, and as the docs say: MathML Core is a subset with increased implementation details based on rules from LaTeX and the Open Font Format. It is tailored for browsers and designed specifically to work well with other web standards including HTML, CSS, DOM, JavaScript. I don't have a lot of experience working with this stuff (yet) but if you can script your... - Source: Hacker News / about 3 years ago
  • What's new in Matplotlib 3.7.0 (Feb 13, 2023)
    Plotly offers multiple options (python, R, javascript). The weby stuff is done with plotly.js and uses d3.js underneath - https://github.com/plotly/plotly.js. - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
  • How to decide between Dash versus Flask + React + Plotly.js?
    So you didn't use Django DRF as the backend? I'm just curious how Dash communicated with Django - did it communicate via plain HTTP calls? I guess you ran non-React Plotly.js (https://github.com/plotly/plotly.js)? Source: about 5 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Plotly and Plotly.js, 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.

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

Highcharts - A charting library written in pure JavaScript, offering an easy way of adding interactive charts to your web site or web application

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.

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

Google Charts - Interactive charts for browsers and mobile devices.