Software

Five free web apps for graphing dynamic data

By // August 14, 2014, 5:50 AM PST

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  • Introduction

    Creating graphs is easy — grab your favorite spreadsheet program, enter some data, and use the chart wizard. What's more difficult is creating those graphs to be published on the web based on dynamic data. Plenty of options are available to graph hard-entered data, but few are capable of dynamic generation.

    In this edition of Five Apps, we take a look at five free web-based tools for creating different types of graphs from dynamic data. Each of these apps offers a vast number of options and lots of customizability, more so than I could possibly demonstrate here. So take a look at each webpage and browse through the examples provided to see the power of each of these tools.

    Note: This gallery is also available as an article.

    Image: iStockphoto.com/davidcrehner

  • amCharts

    The amCharts integrated editor allows you to generate a graph or chart quickly and easily by choosing the aspects of the chart you want to modify. amCharts assembles this all into HTML you can copy into your web page.

    Wally

  • amCharts

    Here are some additional settings available in the editor. Settings can be maintained via the XML tab in the bottom left, for advanced chart creators.

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  • D3.js

    D3.js supports basically all of the most common chart types.

    Wally

  • D3.js

    D3.js also supports many specialized chart types – in reality, it supports anything someone wishes to create because it is a complete DOM framework.

    Wally

  • Flot

    Flot supports many types of charts and some advanced features including dynamic data binding.

    Wally

  • Flot

    Another advanced feature of Flot is selection and zooming. You can click and drag with the mouse to select a range of data and then optionally zoom into that selection.

    Wally

  • Google Charts

    Google Charts is an HTML5-based API offering a variety of chart types — pie, bar, line, tree map, and many others — with a wide array of customizable attributes, including colors, labels, and graphical appearance.

    Wally

  • Google Charts

    The Google Code Playground can be used to design and build your charts and graphs and then see the results instantly.

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  • Highcharts

    Highcharts has dozens of styles and types available including a line chart with multiple series supported.

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  • Highcharts

    Another chart in HighCharts is a scatter plot with regression lines.

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  • Highcharts

    HighCharts links to jsFiddle for design, creation, and instant feedback.

    Wally

Introduction

Creating graphs is easy — grab your favorite spreadsheet program, enter some data, and use the chart wizard. What's more difficult is creating those graphs to be published on the web based on dynamic data. Plenty of options are available to graph hard-entered data, but few are capable of dynamic generation.

In this edition of Five Apps, we take a look at five free web-based tools for creating different types of graphs from dynamic data. Each of these apps offers a vast number of options and lots of customizability, more so than I could possibly demonstrate here. So take a look at each webpage and browse through the examples provided to see the power of each of these tools.

Note: This gallery is also available as an article.

Image: iStockphoto.com/davidcrehner

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