It is no surprise that data visualization plays an important role in the data science domain. It is not easy to monitor and tweak data to make it perform the way it should without a clear understanding of the data. And this is where data visualization comes into the picture, it takes the collected data and places it into a visual context. It also makes it easier to figure out patterns, tract trends, etc.
These all can be done only when you have the right data visualization tool. And open-source has started to gain significant traction when it comes to data visualization tools. Also, people tend to confuse free with open-source. Open-source is about having access to the source code, it has absolutely nothing to do to free tools.
And in this article, we list some of the open-source data visualization tools that you can consider using.
(The list is in alphabetical order)
Candela
When it comes to open source as well as JavaScript, candela is definitely one of the best packages for data visualization. The package comes with a normalised API for use in real-world data science applications and is made available through the Resonant platform.
Talking about installation, one can either install Candela from standard package repositories systems or install from source. Furthermore, while the first installation process is simple, it doesn’t come with much public release versions. On the other hand, if installed from the source, which is slightly more complicated, allows the user to run cutting-edge development versions.
Charted
Charted is an open-source tool that automatically visualizes data. All you have to do is provide a link to a data file and the tool will return a shareable visualization of that data. Created back in 2013, by the product science team at Medium, Charted works with files that are already publicly accessible to anyone with the link. And if you are wondering about protected or sensitive data, one can serve its own instance of Charted on its secure network. Since inception, this tool has become really popular when it comes to analysing data and communicate findings with the data science team.
Chart JS
Chart JS is a community maintained open-source clean charting library. It helps data science professionals visualize data using JavaScript. However, before going forward with the process, you’ll have to include the library in the frontend code. Chart JS gives a good feel to the charts.
Talking about installing this library, you can download the latest version from the GitHub releases. To know more about this open-source tool, you can visit here.
D3.js
D3.js is a JavaScript library that is used in the manipulation of documents based on data. The library helps in develops data visualizations through the use of HTML, SVG, and CSS. The main focus of the platform is to gives its users the full capabilities of modern browsers without tying a proprietary framework, combining powerful visualization components and a data-driven approach to Document Object Model (DOM) manipulation.
Datawrapper
It is an open-source mobile-friendly data visualization platform that helps everyone to create simple, correct, and embeddable charts in minutes. The tool comes in both free and paid versions (the free version is for a single user and supports 10,000 monthly chart views).
The tool is designed in such a way that you just need to upload your data, check and describe it and the visualization will be done. You can also publish the chart or embed it.
Dygraphs
Dygraphs is an open-source JavaScript-based charting library that allows its users to explore and interpret dense data sets. However, It requires some level of a web programming background to get started with a chart. Talking about the charts it produces, they are interactive. One can mouse over to highlight individual values, click and drag to zoom, double-clicking to zoom back out, shift-drag to pan etc.
Furthermore, one of the best things about Dygraphs is the fact that it can handle huge data sets. Click here to know more about this charting tool.
Leaflet
Leaflet is an open-source JavaScript library for mobile-friendly interactive maps. One of the best parts about this tool is that it is extremely lightweight and the size is only 38 KB of JS. The tool is designed in such a way that it has almost all the mapping features most developers ever need.
Leaflet not only comes with a lot of plugins for adding features but also works efficiently across all major desktop and mobile platforms. As it is an open-source tool, here is its well-documented API and readable source code.
RAW Graphs
RAW Graphs is an open-source data visualization framework. The best thing about this tool is that all you need to do is either cut/paste data, upload, or provide a link to the data and it will create a wide variety of charts. The framework is built on the D3.js library and is built in such a way that even non-programmers can use it with ease.
First publicly released in 2013, RAW Graph also claims that it is regarded by many as one of the most important tools in the field of data visualization. For more information, click here.
