Alternatives to Plotly.js for Enterprise Software Applications

Selecting the ideal JavaScript chart library for your project is a critical decision that demands thorough evaluation. Our detailed guide offers insights on Plotly.js, including the pros and cons and alternatives to Plotly.js that are better suited for enterprise software applications to help you find the right fit for your application’s needs.

What is Plotly.js?

Plotly.js is a free open-source JavaScript chart library used for creating interactive and visually appealing graphs and charts. It is built on top of D3.js and stack.gl, two well-known JavaScript libraries used for web-based graphics and data visualization.

Plotly offers a wide range of chart types and allows users to create complex, data-driven visualizations, with support for data science in various integrations to statistical software.

What are the Pros and Cons of Plotly.js?

Pros of Plotly.js

• A 2D and 3D chart library with plenty of chart types including line, scatter, bar, pie, bubble, error bars, histograms, heatmaps and contours
• Out of the box feature set including interactive zooming and panning
• Free open-source JavaScript chart library, with a permissive MIT License
• WebGL support (some limitations apply, see below)
• Subplots support or plots within plots
• Suitable for data science, with Python, Matlab, Julia and R modules built on top of Plotly.js
• Maintained library with a community and Stack Overflow presence

Cons of Plotly.js

• Relatively large bundle size of 3.5MB minified (1.1MB GZipped)
• Plotly.js can be slow and struggles with performance with large datasets or many charts on a page.
• Realtime or dynamic data updates are reportedly slow according to community posts
• Rapidly hits WebGL context limits, and it is not currently possible to have more than 8 charts in the DOM when WebGL is enabled
• Very limited documentation making feature or API discovery difficult beyond simple examples
• Users find difficulty customizing the chart
• Open source means lack of enterprise technical support

Suitable Plotly.js Alternatives for Big Data Projects

For applications which have demanding requirements, complex dashboards or big data requirements one viable alternative is SciChart.js.

One of the differences about SciChart.js is it’s designed for demanding applications that require custom features, high performance, or complex visualizations and interactions. It’s built for enterprises building mission-critical apps, and the trusted choice of MedTech companies, like Siemens, financial users, such as JP Morgan, and aerospace organisations, such as NASA.

What are the Advantages of SciChart.js vs. Plotly.js?

Where SciChart really excels is with the consistency of high-performance at scale. But other areas include customization abilities, top-rated tech support and lower memory use.

Scalable Performance for Big Data Projects

Carrying out performance comparison tests using the WebGL accelerated plugins for Plotly.js, SciChart excelled on real-time chart rendering in the following scenarios:

• 100x faster for scrolling in real-time.
• 23x faster at appending and autofitting data.
• 30x faster for randomised, unsorted data.
• 26x faster rendering of datasets on large static charts.
• 9x faster at rendering 1000×1000 heatmaps.
• 16x faster at rendering 3D point clouds.
• 3x faster at rendering 3D surface mesh plots.
• 83x faster 100+ WebGL Charts.

Plotly also started to slow down after 10k points when adding overlays, tooltips and annotations, whereas SciChart continued to deliver consistent performance levels at scale. For multi-charts, SciChart can handle over 100 WebGL charts on the same page. Meanwhile, Plotly.js is limited to 8 before WebGL context is lost.

Lower Memory Usage for Enhanced Performance

SciChart provides up to 70% less memory use than Plotly for scrolling real-time monitoring. This is the result of an efficient data structure, including the Float64 array and FIFO mode. Less memory means better performance, greater stability and more room for scalability.

It’s also worth comparing the bundle sizes. SciChart’s bundle size is around half the size of Plotly’s – 2.3MB and 4.7MB respectively. That goes hand in hand with improving your dashboard performance and load speed.

Unparalleled Customization Abilities

The highly extensible API with many endpoints allows for customization, overriding or bespoke behavior to fit your specific application needs. The best part is that these customizations perform at scale, so you can essentially build whatever chart you need to – there are no limitations. (If there are, we’re working on them!) Having a dedicated team means we’re always improving and reviewing what users have access to. We also closely monitor our forums and tickets to see what developers are asking for.

Enterprise-Level, Responsive Tech Support

SciChart offers developers extensive documentation with embedded codepens. You’ll find hundreds of JavaScript and React chart demos, tutorials and examples online.

If you need a helping hand, an enterprise tech support service offers fast bug fix turnarounds, allowing you to save time and money on projects. Combined with an AI assistant, you can get even faster support and find the documentation without even searching for it.

All of these factors combined contribute to a very high developer user-rating.

To put an objective number on it, Plotly has around 707 open issues, with a heavy backlog on performance related issues. In comparison, SciChart has handled over 12,000 support incidents and 4,000 forum questions. Thanks to a full-time team offering continuous enterprise-grade updates, we work on commits daily, rather than letting them pile up.

Contact Us to Learn More

SciChart.js is a JavaScript and React Chart Library designed for complex, mission critical data visualization applications. Now with a free community edition. If you have a question or would like to learn more about our products and services, please contact us.

CONTACT US GET SCICHART.JS FREE