Comparing javascript libraries for plotting

Plotly.js renders fast and has a large selection of visualizations

We frequently plot quite large amounts of data and want to be able to interact with the data without long wait times. I use the term large data, and not big data, since we are talking about a typical dataset size on the order of some 100k datapoints. This is not really big data, but it is still large enough that many plotting packages have trouble with rendering, zooming, panning etc. Ideally we would like render times below about 500 ms.

To find the ideal plotting package we set up a small test with some promising plotting packages: Echarts, Highcharts, Plotly and Bokeh. We plotted around 300k datapoints from a timeseries and noted the render times in ms. The chart below displays the render times in milliseconds from five repetitions.Echarts and bokeh are canvas based, and render much slower than the other packages which are SVG based.

Additionally, we find our selves wanting a large selection of visualization types. Classic bar chart, line charts etc. just is not enough. Incidentally, plotly also offers a wide range of charts. Plotly is also available as a python and R package so we can build experience in one plotting package independently of programming language.