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Highcharts vs ggplot2: What are the differences?

Introduction: Both Highcharts and ggplot2 are popular data visualization libraries used by developers and data scientists for creating interactive and visually appealing charts and plots. While they serve the same purpose, there are several key differences between the two.

  1. Ease of Use: Highcharts is known for its intuitive and user-friendly interface, allowing users to quickly create charts without deep knowledge of programming. On the other hand, ggplot2 requires a deeper understanding of the R programming language and may require more code to achieve the desired chart.

  2. Flexibility: Highcharts offers a wide range of customization options, allowing users to easily modify the appearance and behavior of charts. It provides a rich set of APIs and options to control every aspect of the chart. In contrast, ggplot2 follows a layered approach where users can sequentially add layers to create a plot. While it offers flexibility, it may not be as extensive as Highcharts.

  3. Interactivity and Animation: Highcharts excels in creating interactive and animated charts, providing features such as tooltips, zooming, panning, and dynamic updates. It offers smooth transitions and animations, enhancing the user experience. On the other hand, ggplot2 focuses more on static visuals and may not have the same level of interactivity and animation capabilities.

  4. Integration with Web Applications: Highcharts is built specifically for JavaScript and can be easily integrated into web applications, making it a preferred choice for web developers. It seamlessly integrates with various frameworks and libraries, simplifying the process of embedding charts in web pages. In contrast, ggplot2 is primarily used in R programming and may not have the same level of integration with web applications, requiring additional steps for embedding in web pages.

  5. Availability of Chart Types: Highcharts provides a vast range of chart types, including line charts, bar charts, pie charts, scatter plots, heatmaps, and more. It focuses on providing a comprehensive set of visualization options. On the other hand, ggplot2 is known for its layered grammar of graphics approach, allowing users to create complex plots by combining different layers and aesthetics. While ggplot2 offers a wide range of possibilities, it may not have the same variety of pre-built chart types as Highcharts.

  6. Community and Support: Highcharts has a large and active community, with extensive documentation, forums, and support resources available. It has been widely adopted and has a strong presence in the industry. On the other hand, ggplot2 is part of the larger R community, which also offers a wealth of resources and support. Both Highcharts and ggplot2 have thriving communities, making it easier to find help and solutions to problems.

**In Summary, Highcharts and ggplot2 differ in terms of ease of use, flexibility, interactivity, integration with web applications, availability of chart types, and community support.

Advice on ggplot2 and Highcharts
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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

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Darren Adams
Senior Developer at Burning Glass Technologies · | 2 upvotes · 135.8K views
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I've used Highcharts with both Angular Js Reactive applications (render as ReactJs) and also a bit of D3. Personally I found Highcharts to be the easiest to use but, with still quite a good level of customisability if you need it. graphs and charts then give D3 a try.

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Pros of ggplot2
Pros of Highcharts
    Be the first to leave a pro
    • 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
    • 5
      Built-in export chart as-is to image file
    • 5
      Easy to customize color scheme and palettes
    • 1
      Export on server side, can be used in email

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    Cons of ggplot2
    Cons of Highcharts
      Be the first to leave a con
      • 9
        Expensive

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      - No public GitHub repository available -

      What is ggplot2?

      It is a general scheme for data visualization which breaks up graphs into semantic components such as scales and layers.

      What is 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.

      Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

      What companies use ggplot2?
      What companies use Highcharts?
      See which teams inside your own company are using ggplot2 or Highcharts.
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      What tools integrate with ggplot2?
      What tools integrate with Highcharts?

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      What are some alternatives to ggplot2 and Highcharts?
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      ApexCharts
      A modern JavaScript charting library to build interactive charts and visualizations with simple API.
      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.
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