comparison of flot versus google charts

Asked 15/2, 2010 at 13:54 Answered 8/12, 2014 at 11:53

I am starting up a website that needs a lot of sophisticated multi line charts. I see two top candidates for the job

Does anyone have any recommendations or preferences on this decision?

Datura answered 15/2, 2010 at 13:54 Comment(2)

I think Flot's prettier, but that's just me. – Atbara 15/2, 2010 at 13:59

it will be interesting to have an answer in favor of Google charts, as so far I see flot is a preferred library in all the answers – Glyceric 2/9, 2014 at 18:23

Google charts: You will need to call out to google every time you need to plot. Is it acceptable to do this from your website?
Control: Flot is the clear winner in this category, as you have a very high degree of control over plots. Also, Flot is pretty fast! I have used it personally, and once you get the hang of the API, it is great. Further, there are many 'plugins' that can be written (and some are available) for flot. I think this is a great feature.

Overall, I would vote for Flot.

Edit: Also look at http://www.highcharts.com/, a great charting library (if you can figure out the licensing).

Bernicebernie answered 17/2, 2010 at 1:3 Comment(3)

the licensing is a nightmare, thats the reason i used flot over highcharts – Kevenkeverian 25/7, 2012 at 10:16

Flot doesn't have a native smoothing option. You have to run the graph through a separate Smooth() script. Google has a simple option to smooth graph. See #16306128 – Glyceric 4/8, 2014 at 15:32

I am to be honest, surprised that Flot gets the vote in the comments and in the accepted answer. Are there no proponents for Google Charts, or is Flot just that clearly superior? – Glyceric 4/8, 2014 at 15:36

There are lots of nice plugins for features like radar graphs (spider graphs), Gantt charts, cluster graphs, 3D effects, gradients effects and lots more in Flot. Flot is also open source and under the MIT license, which gives you complete freedom in using it (even commercially) without having to apply a similar license.

Kickapoo answered 22/10, 2010 at 3:16 Comment(0)

What if Google discontinues their chart service? In case you were wondering, they are well within their rights to do so, and in a few months' notice at that: https://developers.google.com/chart/terms.

Plus, client-side charts will naturally be far better for dynamic charts, which is essentially the standard these days.

Isochromatic answered 8/12, 2014 at 11:53 Comment(0)

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