Plotly vs amCharts

Overview

Plotly.js

Stacks399

Followers694

Votes69

GitHub Stars17.9K

Forks1.9K

amCharts

Stacks216

Followers230

Votes21

Plotly vs amCharts: What are the differences?

Integration and Compatibility: Plotly provides a wide range of integrations with popular programming languages, including Python, R, Javascript, and MATLAB, making it versatile and compatible with various data analysis and visualization tools. On the other hand, amCharts primarily focuses on Javascript-based charts and maps, providing extensive options for web developers working with this programming language.
Chart Types and Customizability: Plotly offers a diverse range of chart types, such as line charts, scatter plots, bar charts, pie charts, and more, along with numerous customization options for colors, labels, annotations, and layout. amCharts, however, provides a comprehensive library of charts, maps, and stock graphs, enabling the creation of complex and interactive visualizations.
Interactivity and Animations: Plotly emphasizes interactivity, providing users with features like zooming, panning, tooltip displays, and hover effects for enhancing data exploration. It also supports smooth animations and transitions for a more engaging user experience. amCharts, although also interactive, offers different types of interactions such as dragging, slicing, and bullet hover, making it advantageous for certain visualization needs.
Documentation and Support: Plotly boasts a comprehensive documentation library with detailed examples, tutorials, and reference guides for easy implementation and troubleshooting. It also has an active community forum for users to seek assistance and share knowledge. amCharts also provides thorough documentation and offers dedicated customer support, ensuring users can effectively utilize its features.
Pricing and Licensing: Plotly offers multiple pricing plans, including a free tier with limited features, and commercial options for businesses and teams. It has open-source libraries available under the MIT license. In contrast, amCharts follows a freemium model, providing basic features for free and offering premium licenses with advanced functionalities for commercial purposes.
Data Visualization Capabilities: Plotly provides advanced data visualization capabilities, including 3D charts, contour plots, heatmaps, and surface plots, enabling users to represent complex datasets effectively. amCharts also offers compelling visualization options, such as stacked charts, radar charts, and radar areas, emphasizing specific data representation needs.

In Summary, Plotly offers versatile integration options, extensive chart types, interactivity, comprehensive documentation, and flexible pricing, while amCharts specializes in Javascript-based charts, specific interactions, a freemium model, and providing various data visualization options.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Advice on Plotly.js, amCharts

Steve

Lead Software Tools Engineer at Leonardo UK

Oct 30, 2020

Review

I would specifically recommend basing your application on Pandas which will handle the vast majority of the work for you. You will be amazed at what you will be able to get done with only a few lines of code.

Pandas can load the data from either Excel xslx files or csv files (and a lot of other places)

If you structure your code well you can have a cross platform command line program, a GUI desktop program, a Jupyter Notebook and a web service all with the vast majority of the code in common.

A jupyter notebook is a great place to start developing your code and may be all that you need.

Some plug-ins & resources that can help:

pandas-summary (for a rapid overview of the data): https://github.com/mouradmourafiq/pandas-summary
pandasgui (for exploring what you would like to do): https://github.com/adamerose/pandasgui
Pandas-Bokeh (plotting): https://github.com/PatrikHlobil/Pandas-Bokeh
plot.ly (plotting): https://plotly.com/python/pandas-backend/
wxPython (for a desktop GUI): https://wxpython.org/

8.81k views8.81k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Plotly.js	amCharts
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.	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.
Feature parity with MATLAB/matplotlib graphing; Online chart editor; Fully interactive (hover, zoom, pan); SVG and WebGL backends; Publication-quality image export	Free or Commercial; All chart and map types you might need; Works on all modern browsers and also old IE; Can use SVG filters; Can be styled with CSS; Online editor available; Zoomable, Scrollable; Date-based charts
Statistics
GitHub Stars 17.9K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 1.9K	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 399	Stacks 216
Followers 694	Followers 230
Votes 69	Votes 21
Pros & Cons
Pros 16 Bindings to popular languages like Python, Node, R, etc 10 Integrated zoom and filter-out tools in charts and maps 9 Great support for complex and multiple axes 8 Powerful out-of-the-box featureset 6 Beautiful visualizations Cons 18 Terrible document	Pros 18 Mock-up tools 3 Each element can be Customized Cons 1 Amcharts upgrade often need to rewrite all code
Integrations
Python React MATLAB Jupyter Julia	Vue.js React TypeScript AngularJS

What are some alternatives to Plotly.js, amCharts?

D3.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.

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.

Chart.js

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

Recharts

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

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

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

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 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.

ApexCharts

A modern JavaScript charting library to build interactive charts and visualizations with simple API.

Bokeh

Bokeh is an interactive visualization library for modern web browsers. It provides elegant, concise construction of versatile graphics, and affords high-performance interactivity over large or streaming datasets.

Related Comparisons

Plotly vs amCharts: What are the differences?

Integration and Compatibility: Plotly provides a wide range of integrations with popular programming languages, including Python, R, Javascript, and MATLAB, making it versatile and compatible with various data analysis and visualization tools. On the other hand, amCharts primarily focuses on Javascript-based charts and maps, providing extensive options for web developers working with this programming language.
Chart Types and Customizability: Plotly offers a diverse range of chart types, such as line charts, scatter plots, bar charts, pie charts, and more, along with numerous customization options for colors, labels, annotations, and layout. amCharts, however, provides a comprehensive library of charts, maps, and stock graphs, enabling the creation of complex and interactive visualizations.
Interactivity and Animations: Plotly emphasizes interactivity, providing users with features like zooming, panning, tooltip displays, and hover effects for enhancing data exploration. It also supports smooth animations and transitions for a more engaging user experience. amCharts, although also interactive, offers different types of interactions such as dragging, slicing, and bullet hover, making it advantageous for certain visualization needs.
Documentation and Support: Plotly boasts a comprehensive documentation library with detailed examples, tutorials, and reference guides for easy implementation and troubleshooting. It also has an active community forum for users to seek assistance and share knowledge. amCharts also provides thorough documentation and offers dedicated customer support, ensuring users can effectively utilize its features.
Pricing and Licensing: Plotly offers multiple pricing plans, including a free tier with limited features, and commercial options for businesses and teams. It has open-source libraries available under the MIT license. In contrast, amCharts follows a freemium model, providing basic features for free and offering premium licenses with advanced functionalities for commercial purposes.
Data Visualization Capabilities: Plotly provides advanced data visualization capabilities, including 3D charts, contour plots, heatmaps, and surface plots, enabling users to represent complex datasets effectively. amCharts also offers compelling visualization options, such as stacked charts, radar charts, and radar areas, emphasizing specific data representation needs.

Plotly vs amCharts

Overview