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. C3.js vs Highcharts vs React D3 Library

C3.js vs Highcharts vs React D3 Library

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Highcharts
Highcharts
Stacks1.5K
Followers1.1K
Votes92
C3.js
C3.js
Stacks398
Followers163
Votes4
React D3 Library
React D3 Library
Stacks28
Followers115
Votes0
GitHub Stars1.5K
Forks82

C3.js vs Highcharts vs React D3 Library: What are the differences?

Introduction

1. Data Visualization Types C3.js primarily focuses on providing interactive charts and graphs with a simpler API, while Highcharts offers a wide range of visualizations, including 3D charts and gauges, making it more versatile. React D3 Library integrates D3.js into React components, providing a powerful combination of data visualization capabilities.

2. Customizability Highcharts offers extensive customization options, allowing users to control almost every aspect of the chart's appearance and behavior, while C3.js has limited customization features compared to Highcharts. React D3 Library also provides high customizability through the use of D3.js.

3. Community Support Highcharts has a larger and more active community compared to C3.js, resulting in more resources, tutorials, and plugins available for users. React D3 Library benefits from the strong D3.js community support, providing a wealth of resources and examples for developers.

4. Performance Highcharts offers superior performance in rendering large datasets compared to C3.js due to its optimized architecture and rendering engine. React D3 Library utilizes the power of D3.js for efficient data manipulation and rendering, producing fast and responsive visualizations.

5. Licensing Highcharts requires a commercial license for any commercial or non-commercial use, while C3.js is open source under the MIT license, allowing free usage for both personal and commercial projects. React D3 Library is also open source, offering free usage and flexibility for developers.

6. Learning Curve C3.js is known for its ease of use and simplicity, making it ideal for beginners and quick implementations, whereas Highcharts and React D3 Library have steeper learning curves due to their advanced features and integration complexities, suiting more experienced developers.

In Summary, C3.js provides simplicity and ease of use, Highcharts offers versatility and extensive customization, while React D3 Library combines the power of D3.js with React components for advanced data visualization solutions.

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 Highcharts, C3.js, React D3 Library

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
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

Highcharts
Highcharts
C3.js
C3.js
React D3 Library
React D3 Library

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.

c3 is a D3-based reusable chart library that enables deeper integration of charts into web applications.

An open source library that will allow developers the ability to reroute D3 output to React’s virtual DOM. Just use your existing D3 code, and with a few simples lines, you can now harness the power of React with the flexibility of D3!

It works in all modern mobile and desktop browsers including the iPhone/iPad and Internet Explorer from version 6;Free for non-commercial;One of the key features of Highcharts is that under any of the licenses, free or not, you are allowed to download the source code and make your own edits;Pure Javascript - Highcharts is solely based on native browser technologies and doesn't require client side plugins like Flash or Java.
Comfortable - C3 makes it easy to generate D3-based charts by wrapping the code required to construct the entire chart. We don't need to write D3 code any more.;Customizable - C3 gives some classes to each element when generating, so you can define a custom style by the class and it's possible to extend the structure directly by D3.;Controllable - C3 provides a variety of APIs and callbacks to access the state of the chart. By using them, you can update the chart even if after it's rendered.
-
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
1.5K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
82
Stacks
1.5K
Stacks
398
Stacks
28
Followers
1.1K
Followers
163
Followers
115
Votes
92
Votes
4
Votes
0
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 34
    Low learning curve and powerful
  • 17
    Multiple chart types such as pie, bar, line and others
  • 13
    Responsive charts
  • 9
    Handles everything you throw at it
  • 8
    Extremely easy-to-parse documentation
Cons
  • 9
    Expensive
Pros
  • 2
    Reusable charts
  • 2
    Easy to use
Cons
  • 1
    Dependent on D3.js which is not lightweight
No community feedback yet
Integrations
No integrations available
D3.js
D3.js
React
React
D3.js
D3.js

What are some alternatives to Highcharts, C3.js, React D3 Library?

D3.js

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.

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.

Chart.js

Chart.js

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

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.

ApexCharts

ApexCharts

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

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