We live in an age where large amounts of data is being constantly generated on user interactions on websites and with online services. All this data is critical to measure the performance of websites and online solutions and gain valuable insight on markets, consumers, industries, trends or new products and services. But the rub here is that raw data is very difficult to make sense of. You need to be able to visualize the data to get something that can be understood and used by others. Data visualization helps you make sense of data faster and observe patterns that you would not have noticed otherwise.
There are several data visualization tools and software available online and on the shelf. Some solutions feature data visualization as just one of their features, while others focus entirely on data visualization. Both serve different purposes, but this particular list of data visualization tools categorizes them by their user base. In this list, we cover the best tools for developers, which require coding knowledge, and tools for non-developers that do not require coding.
Data visualization tools for developers
These tools are meant for developers who know JavaScript, HTML, CSS and/or SVG. Here is a look at the best of them:
JS
Data Driven Documents or D3. JS is one of the most popular and important data visualization tools in the industry right now, and for good reason. It uses CSS, HTML an SVG for rendering some really clever and interesting diagram and chart designs. This tool can pretty much handle any visualization; it has several features, looks good and has an easy and intuitive user interface. Most importantly, it is open-source and free for all.
Although D3 does not come with pre-built charts, it does come with a gallery that presents the possibilities of data visualization with D3. However, this tool is far from perfect. For one, it is a tool for serious developers and can take some time to learn. Apart from its steep learning curve, D3 is also compatible only with browsers above Internet Explorer 9. If you want to present your charts on an older browser, you need to look elsewhere.
D3.JS is a preferred data visualization tool among developers for a number of reasons. For one, it works on the web, unlike several other libraries that tend to lack graphic flexibility and need plugins. Apart from its compatibility with new technologies, D3 is also preferred for its great documentation, communities, examples and accessibility. It does come with disadvantages, though. DOM manipulation can be really slow for large entry numbers, making D3 less suitable for large data sets. SVG also suffers from performance limitations when dealing with large element quantities.
FusionCharts
FusionCharts makes this list of top ten data visualization tools for its large collection of maps and charts, with close to 1,000 maps and 100 chart times. With so many options, you should be able to find all the designs that you need right from the start. In addition, the software supports modern browsers as well as older ones from IE 6. The tool supports XML and JSON data formats, and charts can be exported in PDF, JPEG, PNG and SVG. There are several live demos and business dashboards available as well if you want some great ideas for visualizing and presenting your data.
FusionCharts’ maps and charts work in all major platforms and devices and are heavily customizable. The caveat here is that it is not free, nor is it cheap. It comes with a pretty high price tag, but you can opt for an unrestricted free trial if you’d like and buy the software later on.
FusionCharts offers interactive JavaScript/HTML5 charts, and it comes with visual editing, clickable legend keys, easy scrolling and zooming, jQuery charts and great tooltips. It also comes with an easy drill-down and extensive documentation. It is also pretty quick in making charts. HTML5 charts can be made in less than 15 minutes with a copy-and-paste installation and great demos. FusionCharts comes with a number of components with different features, such as FusionCharts XT, FusionMaps XT, PowerCharts XT and FusionWidgets XT.
Charts.JS
From the massive FusionCharts, we move to the much smaller Chart. JS open source library, which supports line, doughnut, pie, polar, radar and bar chart types. Despite its small size and collection, this tool does collect all the charts and visualization types that you need for small to medium-sized projects. FusionCharts and other larger libraries and visualization tools make sense if you have a large and complex application, but for everything else Chart.JS should do quite well.
Chart.JS renders charts with the HTML5 canvas element, so the charts use a flat design and are responsive. It has been gaining popularity recently among open source charting libraries, and for good reason.
Since Chart.JS uses canvas, you need to include a polyfill to support older browsers, like ExplorerCanvas. The library does not have dependencies, and its already small size can be lowered even further when minified, concatenated, g-zipped and stripped of the core chart types that you do not need. For instance, you can just include the core and pie module if you only want to draw a pie chart for your website. The charts are also responsive, so they adapt based on the screen space available. Chart.JS comes with clear and extensive documentation for easily using its basic and advanced features.
Google Charts
Now let’s get back to the heavy hitters. No list of data visualization tools would be complete without a mention of Google Charts. This tool renders charts in SVG and HTML5 for cross-browser compatibility and portability across Android and iOS platforms. It also includes VML to support older version of IE.
Google Charts offers quite a few charts that cover most of the common ones that are used, including gauges, pie, area and bar types. It comes with Google’s trademark user-friendliness and flexibility.
When compared to D3.JS, Google Charts cannot as much of a variety of graphs. But it is great in the graphs that it does create. It also has an easier to use API as compared to D3, where you have to build every bar, line and axis from scratch. It can be picked up even by developer novices.
Google Charts also has huge plus point over D3 in that it can export charts to PNGs directly. However, it lacks the level of customization that D3 offers. Also, some of Google Charts do not support large data sets. In addition, it is not quite possible to add other DOM functions like zoom and click functions for any graph of your choice.
Overall, Google Charts is a good choice for those who want simple and basic graphs without wasting a lot of tie.
Highcharts
This is another major data visualization tool in the market right now. Highcharts offers a huge range of maps and charts out of the box just like FusionCharts, but it also offers stock charts package that is rich with features, called Highstock.
Highcharts can export charts to PDF, SVG, JPG and PNG, and it has a demo section that lets you check out the chart types it has to offer. This is also a free visualization tool for personal and non-commercial use, but you do need to purchase a license to use it in commercial applications.
Highcharts is written in pure JavaScript, making it a little easier to add interactive charts to your web application or website. It supports line, area, areaspline, spline, bar, pie, column, scatter, and several other chart types.
This tool works on all browsers, including the iPhone and iPad. With the non-commercial free version, you can use Highcharts for making graphics for a personal website, non-profit or school website. Under any of the free or paid licenses, you can also download the source code and edit it on your own. Highcharts is based solely on native browser technologies. It does not require client-side plugins like Java or Flash, and you do not have to install anything on your server either. You only need two JS files to run, which the Highcharts.JS core and either the MooTools, Prototype or jQuery framework.
Leaflet
Leaflet has been developed particularly for mobile-friendly and interactive apps. Like a lot of tools in this list, it is also open source. Moreover, it is really small in size at just 33kb but comes with a number of features to make maps. Leaflet uses CSS3 and HTML5 to render maps and can work in all major mobile and desktop platforms. Its developer, Vladimir Agafonkin, has said that Leaflet was designed for simplicity and usability. You can also find a number of plugins to add more features like heat maps, animated markers and more.
Leaflet is a leading open source JavaScript library to make mobile-friendly and interactive maps, with most of the mapping features needed by developers. It can be extended with lots of plugins and it has a well-documented API with a readable, simple source code.
It is not the best tool for everyone, instead focusing on the basic things. Right out of the box, it comes with tile layers, WMS, markers, popups, vector layers, image overlays, interaction features and GeoJSON. It comes with interaction features including scroll wheel zoom, drag panning with inertia, zoom to area, marker dragging and more. Visual features include zoom and pan animation, retina resolution support, and tile and popup fade animation. Its customization features include CSS3 popups and controls, image-based and HTML-based markers, custom map projections, and more.
Dygraphs
Dygraphs is another open source charting library that uses JavaScript and can handle large data sets. It is also highly customizable, flexible and fast. The library works in all the major browsers, and it is backed by an active community. However, it isn’t suitable for every project. It has a highly defined and niche use case, but it works in most cases when you have to handle large data sets.
Dygraphs is fast and flexible, enabling users to interpret and explore dense data sets. It creates interactive charts with zoom, click and drag and other functions. You can use this tool to handle large data sets with millions of points without being bogged down. Zoom, mouse-over and pan functions are available out of the box and by default. It offers strong support for error bars or confidence intervals. Dygraphs are also highly customizable, and you can use custom callbacks and options to make Dygraphs do almost anything. It is highly compatible and work in all major browsers.
Data visualization tools for non-developers
For those of you who want to present data without coding, there are several tools for non-developers out there. Here are the best ones.
Datawrapper
Datawrapper is different from the rest of the data visualization tools in this list in that it is online. You can make an interactive chart by uploading data from a CSV file or just directly pasting data into their respective fields. Datawrapper can generate line, bar or other chart types. It is a pretty popular tool among news organizations and reporters who want to embed live charts in their articles and reports. The tool is pretty easy to use and it produces every effective results.
Tableau
This is one of the most popular data visualization tools among non-developers. Tableau Public supports a number of chart, map, graph and other types of graphics. It is also free to use, with the resulting charts being easy to embed into a web page. However, the charts are graphics available via Tableau are also available in similar tools, and the free version does come with a massive footer branding that may not work well with your presentation. A paid version is available, so you can opt for that if you really want results without the footer.
Infogram
Infogram is another online tool that lets you create charts as well as infographics. You can use free version with restricted features, or opt for any of two paid options that includes over 200 maps, icons library, private sharing and more. Infogram has an easy user interface, and its charts are pretty well-designed, including the basic versions. However. It does add a large logo when you embed interactive charts in the web page using the free version.
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