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Skia VS D3.js

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

Skia logo Skia

Skia is an easy-to-use and user-friendly 2D Graphics Library that comes with many prominent APIs for usage in software and hardware platforms.

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.
  • Skia Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-03-04
  • 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.

Skia features and specs

  • Open Source
    Skia is an open-source graphics library, which means it's free to use and has contributions from a large community that ensures a wider range of support and continual improvement.
  • Cross-Platform
    Skia supports multiple platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS, which makes it versatile for developing applications that are intended to run on different operating systems.
  • High Performance
    Designed for high performance, Skia can support both CPU and GPU-accelerated rendering, making it suitable for applications that require efficient graphics processing.
  • Integration
    Skia can be easily integrated with various frameworks and technologies, such as Flutter, making it a flexible solution for developers working on different projects.
  • Rich Feature Set
    Skia provides a wide range of features, including vector graphics, text rendering, and complex shapes, which offer developers great flexibility in design and functionality.

Possible disadvantages of Skia

  • Complexity
    Due to its comprehensive feature set and cross-platform capabilities, Skia can be complex to learn and use effectively, especially for developers who are new to graphics programming.
  • Limited Documentation
    While Skia is supported by an active community, some users might find its official documentation lacking in depth and detail, making it difficult to fully understand and leverage its capabilities without additional research.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    The complexity and breadth of Skia's features can result in a steep learning curve for new users, which can be a barrier to quick adoption and productivity.
  • Lack of Direct Support
    As an open-source project, Skia does not offer official customer support, so users must rely on community forums and third-party resources for troubleshooting and assistance.
  • Integration Overhead
    While Skia is versatile in its integration capabilities, incorporating it into a project may require significant effort or additional tools, especially if the project isn't already using compatible frameworks.

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.

Skia videos

SkiA Ski Trainer Review

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 Skia and D3.js)
Development
100 100%
0% 0
Charting Libraries
0 0%
100% 100
Photos & Graphics
100 100%
0% 0
Data Visualization
0 0%
100% 100

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Reviews

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

Skia Reviews

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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 Skia. 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.

Skia mentions (23)

  • Skia Canvas: Browser-Less Implementation of the HTML Canvas Drawing API for Node
    > Firefox and Chrome have at various points in time used Skia as a backend for their own implementations of the Canvas API, too. Skia is the graphics engine used by Chrome and Android to render everything: https://skia.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Web Browser Engineering
    Yes [4]. > [1] The library is used as of 2023 in Google Chrome, ChromeOS, ChromiumOS, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, Android, Firefox OS, Flutter,[5] Avalonia (from Alpha 4), LibreOffice (from version 7.0) and RAD Studio[6](since version 12.0). > [2] Changes to the Skia repository will be rolled into Chromium by the AutoRoll bot several times per day. > [3] It serves as the graphics engine for Google Chrome... - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Cairo – Open-Source 2D Graphics Layer/API with Fonts and Many Back-Ends
    Didn't know about Skia previously! So, let's provide some links: Overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skia_Graphics_Engine Homepage: https://skia.org/ Source: https://skia.googlesource.com/skia/ https://github.com/google/skia where the following github projects which involve drawing are mentioned: https://github.com/bkaradzic/bgfx https://github.com/wjakob/nanogui we find the following interesting quote:... - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Lottie under the hood
    Actually, that's not entirely accurate. The lottie-web Library itself doesn't support rendering to WebGL. However, there is a package called canvaskit-wasm that wraps Skia (a graphics engine) with WebAssembly (wasm). This package includes a module called skottie which supports rendering animations into a WebGL surface. However, there is a drawback with this approach: using wasm requires loading a relatively large... - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • Widely-used graphics library
    Skia is pretty great if you can get it running. Source: about 2 years 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 / about 2 months ago
  • 2024 Nuxt3 Annual Ecosystem Summary🚀
    Document address: D3.js Official Document. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • 100+ Must-Have Web Development Resources
    D3.js: One of the most popular JavaScript visualization libraries. - Source: dev.to / 7 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 / 7 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
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What are some alternatives?

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

Cairo - Cairo is an open-source 2D graphics library released under the GNU Lesser General Public License with support for several output devices.

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

Anti-Grain Geometry (AGG) - Anti-Grain Geometry (AGG) is an open-source 2D graphics library that provides you with tools to create multiple shapes and also comes with detailed documentation for explaining all the important concepts.

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

PlotDevice - PlotDevice is a graphics language for tinkerers, designers, developers and is written in Python.

Plotly - Low-Code Data Apps