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D3.js vs Tableau: What are the differences?
# Introduction
This Markdown code discusses the key differences between D3.js and Tableau in the context of data visualization for website development.
1. **Development Approach**: D3.js is a JavaScript library that allows for more customization and control over the creation of data visualizations through code, making it suitable for developers with coding experience. On the other hand, Tableau is a visual analytics platform that provides a user-friendly interface for creating visualizations without the need for coding, catering to a wider range of users including non-technical ones.
2. **Flexibility and Customization**: D3.js provides a high level of flexibility and customization in creating complex and interactive visualizations by manipulating the DOM directly. Tableau, while offering intuitive drag-and-drop functionalities, may have limitations in advanced customization options compared to D3.js.
3. **Learning Curve**: D3.js requires a steeper learning curve due to its programmatic approach and the need for familiarity with JavaScript, SVG, and DOM manipulation concepts. Tableau, with its user-friendly interface and guided features, offers a lower learning curve for beginners and users without programming knowledge.
4. **Integration with Web Development**: D3.js integrates smoothly with web development frameworks and technologies, allowing for seamless incorporation of visualizations within websites and web applications. Tableau visualizations can be embedded into webpages, but may have more limitations in terms of design and customization control compared to D3.js.
5. **Community Support**: D3.js has a strong and active community of developers contributing to its open-source ecosystem, providing a wide range of resources, libraries, and examples for users. Tableau also has a supportive community, but its focus is more on commercial users and enterprise solutions, which may differ in terms of available resources and community interaction.
6. **Cost**: D3.js is a free and open-source library, making it cost-effective for projects without budget constraints. Tableau, as a commercial software, offers various pricing plans based on the user's needs, making it more suitable for businesses with specific requirements and resources to invest in data visualization.
In Summary, D3.js and Tableau differ in their development approach, flexibility, customization, learning curve, integration with web development, community support, and cost, catering to different user profiles and project requirements in data visualization for websites.
Decisions about D3.js and Tableau
Wei Wei
CTO at Flux · | 1 upvote · 218.3K views
Very easy-to-use UI. Good way to make data available inside the company for analysis.
Has some built-in visualizations and can be easily integrated with other JS visualization libraries such as D3.
Can be embedded into product to provide reporting functions.
Support team are helpful.
The only complain I have is lack of API support. Hard to track changes as codes and automate report deployment.
Vojtech Kopal
Head of Data at Mews Systems · | 3 upvotes · 314.3K views
Power BI is really easy to start with. If you have just several Excel sheets or CSV files, or you build your first automated pipeline, it is actually quite intuitive to build your first reports.
And as we have kept growing, all the additional features and tools were just there within the Azure platform and/or Office 365.
Since we started building Mews, we have already passed several milestones in becoming start up, later also a scale up company and now getting ready to grow even further, and during all these phases Power BI was just the right tool for us.
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Learn MorePros of D3.js
Pros of Tableau
Pros of D3.js
- Beautiful visualizations195
- Svg103
- Data-driven92
- Large set of examples81
- Data-driven documents61
- Visualization components24
- Transitions20
- Dynamic properties18
- Plugins16
- Transformation11
- Makes data interactive7
- Open Source4
- Enter and Exit4
- Components4
- Exhaustive3
- Backed by the new york times3
- Easy and beautiful2
- Highly customizable1
- Awesome Community Support1
- Simple elegance1
- Templates, force template1
- Angular 41
Pros of Tableau
- Capable of visualising billions of rows6
- Intuitive and easy to learn1
- Responsive1
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Cons of D3.js
Cons of Tableau
Cons of D3.js
- Beginners cant understand at all11
- Complex syntax6
Cons of Tableau
- Very expensive for small companies3
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- No public GitHub repository available -
What is 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.
What is Tableau?
Tableau can help anyone see and understand their data. Connect to almost any database, drag and drop to create visualizations, and share with a click.
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What companies use D3.js?
What companies use Tableau?
What companies use Tableau?
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What tools integrate with D3.js?
What tools integrate with Tableau?
What tools integrate with D3.js?
What tools integrate with Tableau?
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What are some alternatives to D3.js and Tableau?
three.js
It is a cross-browser JavaScript library and Application Programming Interface used to create and display animated 3D computer graphics in a web browser.
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.
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.
Python
Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.
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.