StackShareStackShare
Follow on
StackShare

Discover and share technology stacks from companies around the world.

Follow on

© 2025 StackShare. All rights reserved.

Product

  • Stacks
  • Tools
  • Feed

Company

  • About
  • Contact

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  1. Stackups
  2. Business Tools
  3. UI Components
  4. Charting Libraries
  5. Chart.js vs D3.js

Chart.js vs D3.js

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

D3.js
D3.js
Stacks2.0K
Followers1.7K
Votes653
GitHub Stars111.7K
Forks22.9K
Chart.js
Chart.js
Stacks2.0K
Followers786
Votes44
GitHub Stars66.7K
Forks12.0K

Chart.js vs D3.js: What are the differences?

  1. Key Difference 1: Purpose and Scope: Chart.js is a simple and flexible charting library that focuses on creating responsive and visually appealing charts for web applications. It provides a wide range of chart types and customization options. On the other hand, D3.js (Data-Driven Documents) is a powerful JavaScript library that allows users to manipulate documents based on data. It provides a comprehensive set of data visualization tools and enables the creation of highly interactive and complex visualizations.

  2. Key Difference 2: Approach: Chart.js follows a declarative approach, where charts can be easily created using predefined configurations and options. It provides a simple API for configuring various properties of a chart, making it beginner-friendly. In contrast, D3.js follows an imperative approach, where developers have full control over manipulating the DOM and data. It requires more coding and understanding of JavaScript and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) to create visualizations.

  3. Key Difference 3: Learning Curve: Chart.js has a lower learning curve compared to D3.js. It provides a user-friendly and intuitive interface, making it easy for beginners to create basic charts without much coding knowledge. D3.js, on the other hand, has a steeper learning curve and requires a solid understanding of JavaScript and SVG concepts. It is more suitable for experienced developers who need extensive customization and complex data visualizations.

  4. Key Difference 4: Chart Complexity: Chart.js is best suited for creating simple to moderately complex charts. It provides a wide range of built-in chart types like line, bar, pie, etc., along with customizable options for styling and animations. D3.js, on the other hand, is capable of creating highly intricate and custom visualizations. It allows users to create complex layouts, apply advanced data transformations, and handle large datasets efficiently.

  5. Key Difference 5: Community Support and Resources: Chart.js has a large and active community, with extensive documentation, tutorials, and examples available. It has a well-maintained GitHub repository and frequent updates, ensuring ongoing support and bug fixes. D3.js also has a dedicated community, but it is relatively smaller compared to Chart.js. However, D3.js offers more flexibility due to its broader functionality, and users can find a range of examples and tutorials for specific needs.

  6. Key Difference 6: Integration with Other Libraries: Chart.js is designed to be lightweight and can be easily integrated into existing web applications. It has fewer dependencies and can work well with other JavaScript frameworks like React or Angular. D3.js, on the other hand, is a standalone library that provides comprehensive data manipulation and visualization capabilities. It is often used as a foundation for building custom data visualization applications and is less focused on integration with other libraries.

In Summary, Chart.js is a user-friendly and flexible charting library, suitable for creating visually appealing charts with moderate complexity, while D3.js is a powerful data visualization library that allows extensive customization and intricate visualizations, but with a steeper learning curve and more demanding coding requirements.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs
CLI (Node.js)
or
Manual

Advice on D3.js, Chart.js

Shaik
Shaik

Feb 18, 2020

Needs advice

I have used highcharts and it is pretty awesome for my previous project. now as I am about to start my new project I want to use other charting libraries such as recharts, chart js, Nivo, d3 js.... my upcoming project might use react js as front end and laravel as a backend technology. the project would be of hotel management type. please suggest me the best charts to use

246k views246k
Comments
Ayaskant
Ayaskant

SSE-II at Akamai

Oct 25, 2019

Needs advice

I want to get suggestions on these 2 open source js libraries (D3.js & echarts) that help in creating charts or graphs on the UI. Which one will be better for bar graphs. Which is easy to learn and start with? Which provides better features and community support?

My requirements are 1 - Plot data in X-Y axis graph where x-axis will present time till seconds level and Y-Axis will present the data corresponding to that time.

2 - Zoom-in and zoom out feature.

56k views56k
Comments
Sudhan
Sudhan

Dec 23, 2019

Needs advice

I'm developing angular 8 application, I need to create a dynamic, custom charts based on the data, Charts options will be configured with a user input form. at any time users can edit and modify the chart options. even I dont know how many charts I have to create everything is dynamic. ( based on the user configuration chart counts will vary ). I need some suggestions on which chart will give these kinds of flexible options.

42.8k views42.8k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

D3.js
D3.js
Chart.js
Chart.js

It is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. Emphasises on web standards gives you the full capabilities of modern browsers without tying yourself to a proprietary framework.

Visualize your data in 6 different ways. Each of them animated, with a load of customisation options and interactivity extensions.

Declarative Approach for Individual Nodes Manipulation; Functions Factory; Web Standards; Built-in ELement Inspector to Debug; Uses SVG, Canvas, and HTML; Data-driven approach to DOM Manipulation; Voronoi Diagrams; Maps and topo.
animated;HTML5 based;Responsive;Modular;Bar;Doughnut;Radar;Line;Polar Area;Interactive
Statistics
GitHub Stars
111.7K
GitHub Stars
66.7K
GitHub Forks
22.9K
GitHub Forks
12.0K
Stacks
2.0K
Stacks
2.0K
Followers
1.7K
Followers
786
Votes
653
Votes
44
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 195
    Beautiful visualizations
  • 103
    Svg
  • 92
    Data-driven
  • 81
    Large set of examples
  • 61
    Data-driven documents
Cons
  • 11
    Beginners cant understand at all
  • 6
    Complex syntax
Pros
  • 19
    Offers all types of charts
  • 14
    Interactive Charts
  • 10
    It's totally free
Cons
  • 12
    Slow rendering
  • 2
    Bitmap quality export
  • 1
    Low quality zoom plugin
  • 0
    It's totally free
Integrations
JavaScript
JavaScript
React Native
React Native
AngularJS
AngularJS
React
React
Bootstrap
Bootstrap
React
React
AngularJS
AngularJS

What are some alternatives to D3.js, Chart.js?

Underscore

Underscore

A JavaScript library that provides a whole mess of useful functional programming helpers without extending any built-in objects.

Deno

Deno

It is a secure runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript built with V8, Rust, and Tokio.

Highcharts

Highcharts

Highcharts currently supports line, spline, area, areaspline, column, bar, pie, scatter, angular gauges, arearange, areasplinerange, columnrange, bubble, box plot, error bars, funnel, waterfall and polar chart types.

Plotly.js

Plotly.js

It is a standalone Javascript data visualization library, and it also powers the Python and R modules named plotly in those respective ecosystems (referred to as Plotly.py and Plotly.R). It can be used to produce dozens of chart types and visualizations, including statistical charts, 3D graphs, scientific charts, SVG and tile maps, financial charts and more.

Recharts

Recharts

Quickly build your charts with decoupled, reusable React components. Built on top of SVG elements with a lightweight dependency on D3 submodules.

ECharts

ECharts

It is an open source visualization library implemented in JavaScript, runs smoothly on PCs and mobile devices, and is compatible with most current browsers.

ZingChart

ZingChart

The most feature-rich, fully customizable JavaScript charting library available used by start-ups and the Fortune 100 alike.

amCharts

amCharts

amCharts is an advanced charting library that will suit any data visualization need. Our charting solution include Column, Bar, Line, Area, Step, Step without risers, Smoothed line, Candlestick, OHLC, Pie/Donut, Radar/ Polar, XY/Scatter/Bubble, Bullet, Funnel/Pyramid charts as well as Gauges.

CanvasJS

CanvasJS

Lightweight, Beautiful & Responsive Charts that make your dashboards fly even with millions of data points! Self-Hosted, Secure & Scalable charts that render across devices.

AnyChart

AnyChart

AnyChart is a flexible JavaScript (HTML5) based solution that allows you to create interactive and great looking charts. It is a cross-browser and cross-platform charting solution intended for everybody who deals with creation of dashboard, reporting, analytics, statistical, financial or any other data visualization solutions.

Related Comparisons

Bootstrap
Materialize

Bootstrap vs Materialize

Laravel
Django

Django vs Laravel vs Node.js

Bootstrap
Foundation

Bootstrap vs Foundation vs Material UI

Node.js
Spring Boot

Node.js vs Spring-Boot

Liquibase
Flyway

Flyway vs Liquibase