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Recharts VS D3.js

Compare Recharts VS D3.js and see what are their differences

Recharts logo Recharts

Redefined chart library built with React and D3

D3.js logo 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.
  • Recharts Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-13
  • D3.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-11

D3 allows you to bind arbitrary data to a Document Object Model (DOM), and then apply data-driven transformations to the document. For example, you can use D3 to generate an HTML table from an array of numbers. Or, use the same data to create an interactive SVG bar chart with smooth transitions and interaction.

D3 is not a monolithic framework that seeks to provide every conceivable feature. Instead, D3 solves the crux of the problem: efficient manipulation of documents based on data. This avoids proprietary representation and affords extraordinary flexibility, exposing the full capabilities of web standards such as HTML, SVG, and CSS. With minimal overhead, D3 is extremely fast, supporting large datasets and dynamic behaviors for interaction and animation. D3’s functional style allows code reuse through a diverse collection of official and community-developed modules.

Recharts features and specs

  • Easy to Use
    Recharts is designed to be simple to set up and use, making it accessible for developers who want to quickly implement charts without deep knowledge of D3 or other complex libraries.
  • React Integration
    As a React-based library, Recharts integrates seamlessly with React applications, allowing developers to utilize components and props to manage chart data and customization.
  • Rich Set of Components
    Recharts offers a variety of pre-built chart types and components, such as line, bar, area, pie, and radar charts, enabling developers to satisfy many visualization needs.
  • Customizable and Flexible
    The library provides a wide range of configuration options and the ability to customize the look and behavior of charts, allowing developers to tailor visualizations to their specific requirements.
  • Active Community and Documentation
    Recharts has a strong community and good documentation, providing support, examples, and guides for both new and advanced users.

Possible disadvantages of Recharts

  • Limited Interactivity
    Compared to more comprehensive libraries like D3.js, Recharts offers limited interactivity and advanced animations, which may not meet the needs of applications requiring dynamic user interactions.
  • Performance with Large Datasets
    Recharts can face performance issues when dealing with large datasets, as it is not optimized for handling large numbers of data points efficiently.
  • Dependence on React
    As it is designed specifically for React, developers using other frameworks or vanilla JavaScript might find it less applicable, limiting its use outside of React projects.
  • Lack of Advanced Customization
    While it offers customization, Recharts doesn’t provide the deep level of customization available in libraries like D3.js, which may be necessary for more complex visualizations.
  • Less Frequent Updates
    The frequency of updates and new features can sometimes lag behind other libraries, potentially limiting access to the latest charting capabilities or bug fixes.

D3.js features and specs

  • Powerful Visualization
    D3.js allows for the creation of highly customized and interactive data visualizations, harnessing the full power of web standards like SVG, Canvas, and HTML.
  • Data Binding
    It offers robust support for data-driven transformations and binding, enabling intuitive connections between data sets and DOM elements.
  • Community and Ecosystem
    A large and active community contributes to tutorials, plugins, and tools, which can significantly simplify the development process.
  • Flexibility
    D3.js is highly flexible, providing low-level manipulation capabilities without being tied to any specific chart types or patterns.
  • Performance
    It is highly optimized for performance, allowing for efficient rendering of complex visualizations even with large data sets.

Possible disadvantages of D3.js

  • Steep Learning Curve
    D3.js has a steep learning curve due to its low-level nature and requires a solid understanding of JavaScript, DOM manipulation, and data concepts.
  • Complexity
    Creating complex visualizations can be time-consuming and require a significant amount of custom code, making it less approachable for quick, simple tasks.
  • Browser Compatibility
    Although widely supported, some D3.js features may have inconsistent behavior across different browsers, requiring additional testing and debugging.
  • Documentation
    While extensive, D3.js documentation can be challenging for beginners to navigate and understand, causing misunderstandings and slower development times.
  • Dependency Management
    The library itself is modular, but managing dependencies and integrating D3.js with other JavaScript frameworks or libraries can sometimes be problematic.

Analysis of Recharts

Overall verdict

  • Recharts is generally considered a good choice for developers looking for an easy-to-use and flexible charting library in the React ecosystem. Its use of composable components allows for efficient integration and customization, which is suitable for both simple and complex charting requirements.

Why this product is good

  • Recharts is a popular charting library for React that is built on top of D3.js and offers a range of customizable components for creating responsive and attractive charts. It is highly appreciated for its simplicity, ease of use, and integration capabilities with React applications. The library provides a rich set of chart types including line, bar, pie, area, and more, making it a versatile tool for data visualization needs.

Recommended for

  • Developers building applications in React who require responsive and customizable charts.
  • Projects that need a quick and easy setup for data visualization without compromising on flexibility.
  • Teams that want to leverage the power of D3.js without directly dealing with its complexity.

Analysis of D3.js

Overall verdict

  • Yes, D3.js is a highly regarded library for data visualization in the web development community.

Why this product is good

  • Flexibility: D3.js provides incredible flexibility in creating complex and interactive visualizations with web standards (SVG, HTML, and CSS).
  • Customization: It allows for high levels of customization, which lets developers create unique and detailed visualizations tailored to their specific needs.
  • Community and Ecosystem: D3.js has a large, active community and a rich ecosystem of plugins and extensions conducive to learning and integration.
  • Data Binding: Offers powerful ways to manipulate documents based on data; the data-driven approach simplifies dynamic interaction creation.
  • Performance: Efficiently manipulates DOM elements and performs well with large datasets if used correctly.

Recommended for

  • Data Scientists and Analysts looking to create custom, interactive visualizations.
  • Web Developers who need to incorporate complex data visualizations into applications.
  • Educators and Researchers presenting data in an engaging way.
  • Anyone needing to build bespoke visualizations that are not possible with off-the-shelf solutions.

Recharts videos

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D3.js videos

Data Visualization with D3.js - Full Tutorial Course

More videos:

  • Review - Let's learn D3.js - D3 for data visualization (full course)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Recharts and D3.js)
Charting Libraries
15 15%
85% 85
Data Dashboard
13 13%
87% 87
Data Visualization
11 11%
89% 89
Javascript UI Libraries
10 10%
90% 90

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Recharts and D3.js

Recharts Reviews

6 JavaScript Charting Libraries for Powerful Data Visualizations in 2023
Naturally, it’s preferable if your chosen JS library uses the same frontend framework as the rest of your app. Apart from Recharts, which is a React library, all the libraries on our list are compatible with most popular frameworks. Their APIs make it easy to integrate charts into your apps or web pages.
Source: embeddable.com
15 JavaScript Libraries for Creating Beautiful Charts
Recharts is a composable charting library for building charts with decoupled, reusable React components. It’s built on top of SVG elements and D3.js. Check out the list of examples.

D3.js Reviews

6 JavaScript Charting Libraries for Powerful Data Visualizations in 2023
Depending on your requirements, the best JavaScript library is D3.js, as it’s by far the most customizable. However, it’s also really complex and difficult to master. Plus, it’s not as compatible with TypeScript as it is with JavaScript, which can be off-putting for some developers. If you’d prefer a less complex library that you can use with TypeScript, ECharts, and...
Source: embeddable.com
15 JavaScript Libraries for Creating Beautiful Charts
When we think of charting today, D3.js is the first name that comes up. Being an open source project, D3.js definitely brings many powerful features that were missing in most of the existing libraries. Features like dynamic properties, Enter and Exit, powerful transitions, and syntax familiarity with jQuery make it one the best JavaScript libraries for charting. Charts in...
Top 20 Javascript Libraries
D3 stands for Data-Driven Documents. With D3, you can apply data-driven transformations to DOM objects. The keyword with D3 is ‘data-driven,’ which means documents are manipulated depending on the data received. Data can be received in any format and bound with DOM objects. D3 is very fast and supports dynamic behavior for animation and interactions. There are plenty of...
Source: hackr.io
20+ JavaScript libraries to draw your own diagrams (2022 edition)
D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. Right now, I would say is the most popular library of its kind.
15 data science tools to consider using in 2021
Another open source tool, D3.js is a JavaScript library for creating custom data visualizations in a web browser. Commonly known as D3, which stands for Data-Driven Documents, it uses web standards, such as HTML, Scalable Vector Graphics and CSS, instead of its own graphical vocabulary. D3's developers describe it as a dynamic and flexible tool that requires a minimum amount...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, D3.js should be more popular than Recharts. It has been mentiond 167 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.

Recharts mentions (18)

  • Demystifying npm package installation: Insights, analysis and optimization tips
    In order to run each scenario, there must be a package.json file present. For this analysis, we will use the following package.json file. This is a real package.json file, that I've used when creating a simple demo of Recharts library. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • A new way to make graphs more accessible to blind and low-vision readers
    I know the Recharts[1] library have been trying to make their charts more accessibility, but so far I haven't seen any users with screen readers give feedback. If there are any users here with screenreaders, can you read the chart on this link: https://www.chartmaker.io/charts/Ra1UTI7gArCTO0o2MV4zZ [1]: https://recharts.org/. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • Ask HN: What's the best charting library for customer-facing dashboards?
    Chartjs looks great, but I've never used it so can't recommend personally. I've used https://recharts.org a lot with success. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Complete Tutorial: React Admin Panel with refine and daisyUI
    We first build the dashboard page where we present stats for relevant KPIs in cards, charts and a table. We use the React-based Recharts library for plotting our data. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Climate Change Tracker
    For the charts a heavily customized version of recharts (https://recharts.org/) and for the globe threejs (https://threejs.org). - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
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D3.js mentions (167)

  • IO Devices and Latency
    Do you mean something for data visualization, or tricks condensing large data sets with cursors? https://d3js.org/ Best of luck =3. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • 2024 Nuxt3 Annual Ecosystem Summary🚀
    Document address: D3.js Official Document. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • 100+ Must-Have Web Development Resources
    D3.js: One of the most popular JavaScript visualization libraries. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • What are npm Peer Dependencies and how to use them?
    A Dependency is an npm package that our code depends on in order to be able to run. Some popular packages that can be added as dependencies are lodash, D3, and chartjs. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Introducing RacingBars 📊
    RacingBars is an open-source, light-weight (~45kb gzipped), easy-to-use, and feature-rich javascript library for bar chart race, based on D3.js. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Recharts and D3.js, you can also consider the following products

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

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

Plotly - Low-Code Data Apps

ApexCharts - Open-source modern charting library 📊

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.

Google Charts - Interactive charts for browsers and mobile devices.