What should I use for graphs in an ASP.NET 2.0 web application?

Question

I need to implement fairly simple bar charts with "trend lines" (not sure what they're actually called) in an ASP.NET 2.0 web application. What is a good free or nearly free solution for this? I also need to be able to generate PDFs (if nothing else than by printing them to a PDF print driver) server side, so it can't be a JavaScript client side solution.

The free or nearly free thing is a big requirement. We can't spend $1000 or even $500 on some of the nicer charting components that exist from 3rd party control providers.

EDIT: Also, even if they can do them, Google Charts isn't an option because I can't be hitting the Internet for charts for this intranet application.

Answer 1

I like the free Microsoft Chart Controls. They're full featured but I'm not sure that they meet your requirements. The download comes with samples so it should be easy to determine if this meets your needs.

Answer 2

ZedGraph is pretty good.

Answer 3

If you are using SQL Server, Reporting Services is an option. The built-in charts can be rendered as images as well as PDF. I have done this in the past using a handler to call SSRS web service and write the results to the response stream as image/pdf.

This may seem like a little more effort, but it is not so bad if you have a little reporting services experience already.