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Preact.js VS Chartist.js

Compare Preact.js VS Chartist.js and see what are their differences

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Preact.js logo Preact.js

Preact is a fast 3kB alternative to React with the same modern API. Components & Virtual DOM.

Chartist.js logo Chartist.js

Chartist.JS - simple responsive charts.
  • Preact.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-11
  • Chartist.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-11-26

Preact.js features and specs

  • Size
    Preact is very small in size (about 3KB gzipped), which makes it easy to load and faster to execute, resulting in improved performance and quicker load times.
  • Compatibility
    Preact is largely compatible with React, allowing developers to switch to Preact with minimal code changes. This makes it easier to adopt for projects already using React.
  • Performance
    Due to its small size and efficient design, Preact offers excellent performance, especially on low-powered devices and in applications with heavy user interactions.
  • Ecosystem
    Preact can work with many tools and libraries that are designed for React, giving developers access to a rich ecosystem of resources.
  • Community
    Preact has an active and growing community that provides support, plugins, and third-party tools, making it easier for developers to find solutions and share knowledge.

Possible disadvantages of Preact.js

  • Feature Set
    While Preact covers most of the core React features, it lacks some of the advanced functionality present in React, which may require additional workarounds or third-party libraries.
  • Learning Curve
    For developers coming from a non-React background, learning Preact might involve a learning curve, particularly because of its similarities and subtle differences with React.
  • Tooling Compatibility
    Although many tools designed for React can work with Preact, some might not be directly compatible, requiring additional configuration or patches.
  • Community Size
    While Preact has a supportive community, it is smaller compared to the massive React community, which can result in fewer available resources and third-party packages.
  • Maturity
    Preact, being newer and less widely adopted than React, might not have the same level of battle-tested reliability for all use cases, especially for large scale applications.

Chartist.js features and specs

  • Simple to Use
    Chartist.js has a straightforward API that makes it easy for developers to create responsive charts with minimal code.
  • SVG-Based
    Charts are rendered in SVG, which ensures high quality and scalability across different screen sizes and devices.
  • Responsive Design
    Charts created with Chartist.js are responsive by default, automatically adjusting to fit different screen sizes.
  • Customizable
    Provides a high level of customization through options, CSS, and plugins, allowing for flexible chart designs.
  • Lightweight
    Chartist.js is a lightweight library, minimizing the impact on page load times and overall performance.
  • Open Source
    It is open source, meaning developers can contribute to its development or customize the library to fit their needs.

Possible disadvantages of Chartist.js

  • Limited Features
    Compared to some other charting libraries, Chartist.js has limited out-of-the-box features and chart types.
  • Customization Complexity
    While highly customizable, achieving complex customizations can be challenging and may require significant coding and CSS adjustments.
  • Plugin Dependency
    To add certain functionalities, you might need to rely on third-party plugins, which can lead to inconsistencies and additional dependencies.
  • Lack of Interactivity
    Chartist.js offers limited interactivity, such as tooltips or animations, compared to other advanced charting libraries.
  • Performance Issues
    For very large datasets or highly complex charts, performance may degrade, as SVG rendering can be resource-intensive.
  • Limited Documentation
    Some aspects of the library, especially advanced customizations, are not well-documented, which can make implementation more difficult.

Analysis of Preact.js

Overall verdict

  • Preact.js is a strong option for projects where performance and load time are critical, or where a light footprint is necessary. Its compatibility with React makes it a flexible and efficient alternative in scenarios where React may be overkill due to its larger size.

Why this product is good

  • Preact.js is known for its small size and high performance, making it an excellent choice for developers who need a lightweight alternative to React without sacrificing functionality. It offers a familiar API for React developers, ensuring an easy transition, and is highly efficient in terms of rendering performance. Preact also offers excellent compatibility with existing React tools and ecosystems, meaning many React packages work seamlessly with Preact.

Recommended for

    Preact.js is recommended for developers building applications with stringent performance requirements, those needing to optimize for fast loading times in environments with limited bandwidth or resources, or those looking to integrate React-like architecture in smaller projects without introducing the full weight of the React library.

Analysis of Chartist.js

Overall verdict

  • Chartist.js is a good choice for developers who need to create responsive, lightweight, and customizable charts within their web projects. Its simplicity, combined with robust functionality, makes it a solid choice for many use cases.

Why this product is good

  • Chartist.js is a popular open-source library for creating simple, responsive charts on web pages. It is well-regarded for its simplicity and ease of use, as well as its ability to create responsive and stylish charts with minimal amount of code. The library is highly customizable, providing developers with a wide range of options to tailor the visual appearance of charts. It is also lightweight, making it ideal for developing fast-loading web applications.

Recommended for

    Chartist.js is recommended for developers who are building web applications that require dynamic data visualization but need a simple, straightforward tool. It is particularly well-suited for projects where responsiveness and customization are important, and where the performance impact of additional libraries needs to be minimized.

Preact.js videos

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Preact.js and Chartist.js)

Preact.js

Chartist.js

Javascript UI Libraries
89 89%
Javascript UI Libraries
11% 11
Charting Libraries
0 0%
Charting Libraries
100% 100
JavaScript Framework
100 100%
JavaScript Framework
0% 0
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 Preact.js and Chartist.js

Preact.js Reviews

Top JavaScript Frameworks in 2025
PreactJS is a JavaScript library that is said to be the fast 3Kb alternative to ReactJS using the same modern API. It implements the fastest virtual DOM compared to other frameworks in the market. Moreover, it is one of the smallest libraries in terms of size.
Source: solguruz.com
20 Next.js Alternatives Worth Considering
Preact is like React’s little sibling, smaller in size but with the same familiar moves. It’s cutting down the fluff and zipping through tasks with less overhead. When performance budgets are tight, Preact wiggles in perfectly.
Source: tms-outsource.com
20 Best JavaScript Frameworks For 2023
Preact is built with the same core principle of React – A component-based approach with Virtual DOM while completely compatible with React. It can even use React packages without compromising on speed, performance, and leaner size. In instances where the full potential of React isn’t necessary, most developers even use React during development and switch to Preact for...
Source: www.lambdatest.com
Top 15 jQuery Alternatives To Know
ReactJS is a powerful JavaScript library to create user interfaces. Developers can design easy views at each stage in the application and there is regular update and rendering for the actual components whenever there is any data alteration. It is component-driven and creates encapsulated components that manage their own state.
Source: www.spec-india.com
Top 5 JavaScript Frameworks To Learn in 2021
But according to the graph above, we can notice a decrease in interest in Preact. This might result from having many similar frameworks with the same specs, like react-lite, Inferno, etc. However, knowing a framework like Preact will be useful for your development journey.
Source: enlear.academy

Chartist.js Reviews

15 JavaScript Libraries for Creating Beautiful Charts
Chartist.js provides beautiful responsive charts. Just like ChartJS, Chartist.js is the product of a community that was frustrated by using highly-priced JavaScript charting libraries. It uses SVG to render the charts. It can be controlled and customized through CSS3 media queries and Sass. Also, note that Chartist.js provides cool animations that will work only in modern...
Source: www.sitepoint.com
Top 10 JavaScript Charting Libraries for Every Data Visualization Need
Chartist.js is an open-source, unintrusive JS library which can also be used to create nice responsive charts. Generally, Chartist is good for those who need a very simple chart — line, bar, or pie — and who do not require much in terms of data visualization. Good appearance, no need to have many great features in this case.
Source: hackernoon.com
A Complete Overview of the Best Data Visualization Tools
Chartist.js is a free, open-source JavaScript library that allows for creating simple responsive charts that are highly customizable and cross-browser compatible. The entire JavaScript library is only 10KB when GZIPped. Charts created with Chartist.js can also be animated, and plugins allow it to be extended.
Source: www.toptal.com
The Best Data Visualization Tools - Top 30 BI Software
Chartist.js is the result of a desire to create a JavaScript charting library that’s above all of the rest. Leveraging Sass, the styles of the data visualization tool are fully customizable and boasts a responsive, DPI independent, and media query-based SVG output. Chartist.js can be easily integrated with WordPress, Ember, Meteor, React, and AngularJS through a variety of...
Source: improvado.io

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Preact.js should be more popular than Chartist.js. It has been mentiond 93 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.

Preact.js mentions (93)

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Chartist.js mentions (12)

  • Free SVG generators, color tools and web design tools
    Here's a JS framework that seems to do almost everything you want (outside of not requiring a JS framework, of course). It's a Sass project and uses Node modules, so I wasn't able to get it running using vanila js. (I'm not much of a JS dev.) I'm also interested in other players in this space. SVG seems like the ideal way to make static plots. https://gionkunz.github.io/chartist-js/. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Looking for savable graphing methods
    If you are sending the data to a website, or serving the website yourself, using JSON as the data format will be the easiest. Personally I never use cloud services and I just use a Javascript charting library like https://gionkunz.github.io/chartist-js/ (it supports real-time graphs) on a web page that is self-hosted (run a server on the ESP32). Source: about 2 years ago
  • Chartist: Simple Responsive Charts in SVG
    The author went through the effort of creating a marketing site with documentation and examples. https://gionkunz.github.io/chartist-js/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • The Best GitHub Repositories For Django Developers.
    With django-controlcenter you can have all of your models on one single page and build beautiful charts with Chartist.js. Actually they don't even have to be a django models, get your data from wherever you want: RDBMS, NOSQL, text file or even from an external web-page, it doesn't matter. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
  • Vuenique, an open-source library bringing the power of low-level visualization to Vue
    Anyone here have some good suggestions for mature, easy to use graph libraries for Vue 3? Maybe I should write a wrapper around Chartist myself... Source: about 3 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Preact.js and Chartist.js, you can also consider the following products

Svelte - Cybernetically enhanced web apps

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

Vue.js - Reactive Components for Modern Web Interfaces

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.

React - A JavaScript library for building user interfaces

AnyChart - Award-winning JavaScript charting library & Qlik Sense extensions from a global leader in data visualization! Loved by thousands of happy customers, including over 75% of Fortune 500 companies & over half of the top 1000 software vendors worldwide.

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