I have been experimenting with Google charts. Are there any alternatives that are reasonably as expressive but can be installed locally on your own web server? I don't like the idea of relying on an outside entity for a feature to work. Even if it is for cost, it would be preferable. Any suggestions?
+1
A:
I've had some good success with flot: http://code.google.com/p/flot/
It does client-side rendering using canvas.
Chris AtLee
2010-05-10 04:20:02
A:
The Google Visualization API in no way prevents you from hosting things on your own server; the API is merely a design contract intended to provide a uniform way of representing data and visualizations. Anyone who wants to do so can create their own visualizations and data sources that conform to that API. I would suggest you reconsider, as using that API will improve compatibility and allow you to take advantage of other visualizations and other data sources that similarly conform to the API. You can host your own visualizations and your own data sources without relying on Google in any way. For more info, you may be interested in:
Michael Aaron Safyan
2010-05-10 04:20:44
Ok, but does Google let you run their entire current offering for graphs on your server? It is an open source technology, or does it have to run on their servers when using the default visualizations, like line charts?
Rhubarb
2010-05-10 04:23:38
You can't run google visualization api without referencing their servers. While your code will run on your server and render these charts client-side, they majority of the code resides on google and you are still calling remote functions.
Sologoub
2010-05-10 04:24:23
@Rhubarb, the default visualizations (the ones provided by Google) do reside on their servers. Other visualizations in the visualizations library run on the servers provided by whomever provides that visualization. But if you were to use your own visualization, then you would just be using your own visualization.
Michael Aaron Safyan
2010-05-10 08:35:14
The problem is I don't want to implement my own visualizations, the basic charts are all I need. I just don't want them running or relying on external parties.
Rhubarb
2010-05-11 00:02:47
+1
A:
Don't have much experience working with either, but here are the two alternatives that come to mind:
- JFreeCharts: http://www.jfree.org/jfreechart/ (this is a Java library, not sure which language you are using)
- YUI Charts: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/charts/ (JS-based)
Sologoub
2010-05-10 04:21:50
Or just use the Microsft ASP.NET Charting (DataVisualization) engine, of course.
drachenstern
2010-05-10 17:17:26
A:
There are a number of suggestions here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/119969/javascript-chart-library
Google aside, flot seems the most popular.
seancarmody
2010-05-10 04:25:12
A:
If using Flash is no problem you may want to consider FusionCharts (www.fusioncharts.com). They offer a fairly rich set of charting widgets; it's a commercial library.
We've used it in some of our products, and it works well. One of their high-profile users is this federal government's site: http://it.usaspending.gov/
Guus Bosman
2010-05-10 17:12:46
A:
We've used Cewolf which is built on top of JFreechart but uses JSP's.
Jay Askren
2010-05-14 15:14:36