Chart.js vs Highcharts

Overview

Highcharts

Stacks1.5K

Followers1.1K

Votes92

Chart.js

Stacks2.0K

Followers786

Votes44

GitHub Stars66.7K

Forks12.0K

Chart.js vs Highcharts: What are the differences?

Chart.js and Highcharts are both popular JavaScript libraries for creating interactive and visually appealing charts and graphs on the web. Let's explore the key differences between them.

Features and Customizations: Chart.js provides limited customization options and features compared to Highcharts. While both libraries offer various chart types, Highcharts offers more advanced features such as export options, drilldown functionality, and data aggregation. Highcharts also allows developers to create custom chart types and combine multiple charts, providing more flexibility in visualization.
Pricing and Licensing: Chart.js is open-source and released under the MIT license, making it free to use for both personal and commercial projects. On the other hand, Highcharts offers both free and commercial licenses. The free license has limited functionality and requires the display of a Highcharts logo, while the commercial license provides full features and removes the logo requirement.
Community and Documentation: Chart.js has a comparatively smaller community and documentation base compared to Highcharts. Highcharts has been around for a longer time and has a larger user community, providing extensive documentation, sample codes, and community-driven support forums. This can be beneficial for developers seeking assistance, tutorials, and examples for implementing complex charting solutions.
Performance and Rendering: Highcharts is known for its superior performance and smooth rendering of charts, even with larger datasets. It utilizes a fully optimized SVG rendering engine that ensures fast and efficient chart generation. Chart.js, although capable of handling moderate datasets, may experience performance issues and rendering lag when dealing with more complex visualizations or larger datasets.
Compatibility and Integration: Chart.js offers better compatibility with modern web development frameworks and libraries, with seamless integration with React, Angular, and Vue.js. It provides dedicated components and plugins for these frameworks, simplifying the implementation process. Highcharts, on the other hand, may require additional effort or third-party libraries for integration with certain frameworks.
Accessibility and Responsiveness: Highcharts places a strong emphasis on accessibility and responsive design. It provides built-in features like keyboard navigation support, screen reader compatibility, and responsive resizing of charts for optimal viewing across different devices. While Chart.js does offer some level of responsiveness, it may require more manual configuration and customization to achieve the same level of accessibility and responsiveness as Highcharts.

In summary, Chart.js is a lightweight, open-source library with limited features, while Highcharts offers a wider range of advanced features, better performance, and extensive documentation and support.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Advice on Highcharts, Chart.js

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

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	Chart.js
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.	Visualize your data in 6 different ways. Each of them animated, with a load of customisation options and interactivity extensions.
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.	animated;HTML5 based;Responsive;Modular;Bar;Doughnut;Radar;Line;Polar Area;Interactive
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 66.7K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 12.0K
Stacks 1.5K	Stacks 2.0K
Followers 1.1K	Followers 786
Votes 92	Votes 44
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 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
No integrations available	React AngularJS

What are some alternatives to Highcharts, Chart.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.

Underscore

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

Deno

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

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

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.

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

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.

Related Comparisons

Chart.js vs Highcharts: What are the differences?

Chart.js and Highcharts are both popular JavaScript libraries for creating interactive and visually appealing charts and graphs on the web. Let's explore the key differences between them.

Features and Customizations: Chart.js provides limited customization options and features compared to Highcharts. While both libraries offer various chart types, Highcharts offers more advanced features such as export options, drilldown functionality, and data aggregation. Highcharts also allows developers to create custom chart types and combine multiple charts, providing more flexibility in visualization.
Pricing and Licensing: Chart.js is open-source and released under the MIT license, making it free to use for both personal and commercial projects. On the other hand, Highcharts offers both free and commercial licenses. The free license has limited functionality and requires the display of a Highcharts logo, while the commercial license provides full features and removes the logo requirement.
Community and Documentation: Chart.js has a comparatively smaller community and documentation base compared to Highcharts. Highcharts has been around for a longer time and has a larger user community, providing extensive documentation, sample codes, and community-driven support forums. This can be beneficial for developers seeking assistance, tutorials, and examples for implementing complex charting solutions.
Performance and Rendering: Highcharts is known for its superior performance and smooth rendering of charts, even with larger datasets. It utilizes a fully optimized SVG rendering engine that ensures fast and efficient chart generation. Chart.js, although capable of handling moderate datasets, may experience performance issues and rendering lag when dealing with more complex visualizations or larger datasets.
Compatibility and Integration: Chart.js offers better compatibility with modern web development frameworks and libraries, with seamless integration with React, Angular, and Vue.js. It provides dedicated components and plugins for these frameworks, simplifying the implementation process. Highcharts, on the other hand, may require additional effort or third-party libraries for integration with certain frameworks.
Accessibility and Responsiveness: Highcharts places a strong emphasis on accessibility and responsive design. It provides built-in features like keyboard navigation support, screen reader compatibility, and responsive resizing of charts for optimal viewing across different devices. While Chart.js does offer some level of responsiveness, it may require more manual configuration and customization to achieve the same level of accessibility and responsiveness as Highcharts.

Chart.js vs Highcharts

Overview