I Tried 7 JavaScript Chart Libraries. Here’s What Actually Worked

I’m Kayla. I build dashboards for a living. I also make tiny charts for school PTA emails and soccer sign-ups. I’ve messed with a lot of JavaScript chart tools (and documented the full deep-dive in this breakdown if you’re curious). Some days it felt easy. Other days… whew. If you want a bird’s-eye view of the whole ecosystem, the Wikipedia comparison of JavaScript charting libraries table is a great cheat sheet when you’re weighing options.

Let me explain what I used, what broke, and what I’d use again. I’ll share real examples from my projects, too.

Quick vibe check

Need fast wins? Go simple.
Need weird charts or full control? Go lower level.
Need board-room polish? Go big and fancy.

If you’re hunting for a middle-ground option that stays lightweight yet flexible, give EJSChart a spin—I had a prototype up in minutes.

That’s the gist. Now the details.

Chart.js — My easy button (most weeks)

I used Chart.js for a holiday sales dashboard last winter. Two bar charts, one line chart, and a doughnut chart. Mobile first. It worked out of the box, and I shipped in a day. The defaults looked clean. The legend didn’t fight me. Small joy.

What I liked:

Simple setup with a CDN or npm.
Good docs. I didn’t get lost.
Plugins that help (I used datalabels for labels on bars).

What bugged me:

Canvas is fast, but exporting to SVG for print took extra steps.
Big data (like 50k points) got choppy.

Real snippet I used to show monthly sales:

<canvas id="sales"></canvas>
<script>
const ctx = document.getElementById('sales').getContext('2d');
new Chart(ctx, {
  type: 'bar',
  data: {
    labels: ['Jan','Feb','Mar','Apr','May','Jun'],
    datasets: [{
      label: 'Sales ($)',
      data: [1200, 900, 1500, 1300, 1700, 2200],
      backgroundColor: '#4f46e5'
    }]
  },
  options: {
    responsive: true,
    plugins: {
      legend: { position: 'bottom' },
      tooltip: {
        callbacks: {
          label: (ctx) => `$${ctx.parsed.y.toLocaleString()}`
        }
      }
    }
  }
});
</script>

When would I use it again? Most dashboards with normal data. Quick marketing pages. Small apps.

D3.js — The power tool that needs gloves

I built a custom “swimlane” timeline for a logistics team. It felt like Lego bricks. You build the whole thing, piece by piece. (I later wrote up what really worked and what didn’t in D3 over here.)

What I liked:

Total control with SVG and scales.
Transitions that feel smooth.
Works great with React or Svelte if you manage refs right.

What stressed me out:

Steep learning. Small change, many lines.
You own the axes, the legend, the layout. All of it.

Real snippet that drew circles for late orders:

const svg = d3.select('#late').attr('width', 600).attr('height', 200);

const x = d3.scaleTime()
  .domain(d3.extent(data, d => d.date))
  .range([40, 560]);

svg.selectAll('circle')
  .data(data)
  .join('circle')
  .attr('cx', d => x(d.date))
  .attr('cy', 100)
  .attr('r', d => d.minutesLate > 30 ? 6 : 3)
  .attr('fill', d => d.minutesLate > 30 ? '#ef4444' : '#f59e0b');

If your own timeline morphs into a full-blown Gantt view, I compared several free options in this Gantt deep-dive.

When would I use it again? Custom charts, special layouts, or anything the boss sketched on a napkin.

ECharts — Flashy and friendly

I used ECharts for an interactive map of store traffic. I liked the built-in themes. Tooltips felt rich. Panning was smooth. I even turned on their aria feature to help screen readers. I also borrowed a few tricks from a tiny trading dashboard I built—details here.

What I liked:

Polished look with very little setup.
Map, heatmap, candlestick, you name it.
Good for dashboards on TVs.

What bugged me:

Bundle felt bigger than I wanted.
Some config felt nested and long.

Real snippet that made a basic line chart with aria:

const chart = echarts.init(document.getElementById('visits'));
chart.setOption({
  aria: { enabled: true },
  xAxis: { type: 'category', data: ['Mon','Tue','Wed','Thu','Fri'] },
  yAxis: { type: 'value' },
  series: [{ type: 'line', data: [120, 200, 150, 80, 70], smooth: true }]
});

When would I use it again? Big screens, fancy charts, exec demos.

Highcharts — Board-room ready, but watch the license

I put Highcharts on a revenue trend page for a client who wanted “that smooth hover.” It looked premium. Export buttons just worked. Annotations were handy.

What I liked:

Great tooltips and zoom.
Export to PNG/PDF that didn’t fight me.
Strong docs.

What bugged me:

Needs a paid license for work use.
Custom styling can feel a bit strict.

When would I use it again? Corporate dashboards, reports that need printing, teams with budget.

Recharts (React) — Comfortable for React folks

For a React app, I used Recharts to show a funnel and some tiny spark lines (I also prototyped a spider/radar chart with plain JavaScript, but more on that in the separate write-up). The JSX felt natural. I could pass state right into the chart. Legends, grids, and tooltips were components, which felt nice.

What I liked:

Composable. Easy to read.
Works fine with React hooks and Suspense.

What bugged me:

Heavy data or many points can lag.
Some charts need extra tuning to look sharp.

Real snippet from my funnel:

<ResponsiveContainer width="100%" height={240}>
  <FunnelChart>
    <Tooltip />
    <Funnel dataKey="value" data={[
      { name: 'Visited', value: 1200 },
      { name: 'Signed Up', value: 350 },
      { name: 'Paid', value: 140 }
    ]} />
  </FunnelChart>
</ResponsiveContainer>

When would I use it again? React apps with “normal” datasets.

ApexCharts — Fast to pretty

I dropped ApexCharts into a product analytics page for area charts, radial bars, and even radar charts. Setup was fast. The hover felt crisp. Syncing multiple charts took minutes, not hours.

What I liked:

Good defaults. Bright but not loud.
Sync tooltips across charts with a small config.

What bugged me:

Styling beyond the basics took time.
Docs are fine, but I jumped to GitHub issues a few times.

When would I use it again? SaaS dashboards, KPIs, time series that need zoom.

Plotly.js — Heavy but powerful for data folk

I used Plotly for a small ML demo. Scatter plots, 3D stuff, even a box plot—and a bubble chart. It did a lot with no custom code. But it felt heavy.

What I liked:

Many chart types for stats work.
Built-in export and hover compare.

What bugged me:

Big bundle. My page slowed down.
Styling felt a bit rigid.

When would I use it again? Data science demos, notebooks, quick stats charts.

A quick story on speed and pain

I once tried to plot 120,000 points of sensor data. Chart.js crawled. Recharts stuttered. Plotly was not happy. D3 with WebGL scatter (through a small helper lib) finally worked