What is highcharts?
The highcharts npm package is a charting library that allows developers to create interactive and responsive charts for web applications. It supports a wide range of chart types and features, including line, area, bar, pie, scatter, and more complex types like stock, maps, and Gantt charts. Highcharts is designed to work across all modern browsers and is compatible with various frameworks and platforms.
What are highcharts's main functionalities?
Line Charts
This code sample demonstrates how to create a basic line chart using Highcharts, showing the growth of solar employment in various sectors over time.
{"title": {"text": 'Solar Employment Growth by Sector, 2010-2016'},"subtitle": {"text": 'Source: thesolarfoundation.com'},"yAxis": {"title": {"text": 'Number of Employees'}},"legend": {"layout": 'vertical',"align": 'right',"verticalAlign": 'middle'},"plotOptions": {"series": {"label": {"connectorAllowed": false},"pointStart": 2010}},"series": [{"name": 'Installation',"data": [43934, 52503, 57177, 69658, 97031, 119931, 137133, 154175]},{"name": 'Manufacturing',"data": [24916, 24064, 29742, 29851, 32490, 30282, 38121, 40434]},{"name": 'Sales & Distribution',"data": [11744, 17722, 16005, 19771, 20185, 24377, 32147, 39387]},{"name": 'Project Development',"data": [null, null, 7988, 12169, 15112, 22452, 34400, 34227]},{"name": 'Other',"data": [12908, 5948, 8105, 11248, 8989, 11816, 18274, 18111]}],"responsive": {"rules": [{"condition": {"maxWidth": 500},"chartOptions": {"legend": {"layout": 'horizontal',"align": 'center',"verticalAlign": 'bottom'}}}]}}
Pie Charts
This code sample shows how to create an interactive pie chart with Highcharts, displaying browser market shares with options for selecting and slicing portions of the pie.
{"chart": {"plotBackgroundColor": null,"plotBorderWidth": null,"plotShadow": false,"type": 'pie'},"title": {"text": 'Browser market shares in January, 2018'},"tooltip": {"pointFormat": '{series.name}: <b>{point.percentage:.1f}%</b>'},"accessibility": {"point": {"valueSuffix": '%'}},"plotOptions": {"pie": {"allowPointSelect": true,"cursor": 'pointer',"dataLabels": {"enabled": true,"format": '<b>{point.name}</b>: {point.percentage:.1f} %'}}},"series": [{"name": 'Brands',"colorByPoint": true,"data": [{"name": 'Chrome',"y": 61.41,"sliced": true,"selected": true},{"name": 'Internet Explorer',"y": 11.84},{"name": 'Firefox',"y": 10.85},{"name": 'Edge',"y": 4.67},{"name": 'Safari',"y": 4.18},{"name": 'Other',"y": 7.05}]}]}
3D Charts
This code sample illustrates how to create a 3D column chart using Highcharts, which adds a new dimension to the data visualization for better analysis and presentation.
{"chart": {"type": 'column',"options3d": {"enabled": true,"alpha": 15,"beta": 15,"viewDistance": 25,"depth": 40}},"title": {"text": 'Total fruit consumption, grouped by gender'},"plotOptions": {"column": {"depth": 25}},"series": [{"name": 'John',"data": [2, 3, 0, 4, 5]},{"name": 'Joe',"data": [1, 1, 4, 7, 2]}]}
Other packages similar to highcharts
chart.js
Chart.js is a popular open-source charting library that is lightweight and offers a simple API. It supports eight chart types, including line, bar, radar, doughnut, pie, polar area, bubble, and scatter. Compared to Highcharts, Chart.js is more focused on simplicity and ease of use, but it may not offer as many features or as much flexibility for complex visualizations.
d3
D3.js is a powerful and flexible library for creating custom data visualizations using web standards. It provides a low-level approach, giving developers more control over the final visualization. While Highcharts offers a high-level API for creating standard chart types easily, D3.js requires more coding but allows for more unique and intricate visualizations.
echarts
ECharts is an open-source charting library that offers a rich set of chart types and options. It is capable of producing interactive and complex charts and maps. ECharts is similar to Highcharts in terms of functionality but is known for its strong support for mobile devices and ease of integration with the Baidu Map service.
amcharts
amCharts is a comprehensive charting library that provides a wide array of chart types and features, including 3D charts, gauge charts, and timelines. It is comparable to Highcharts in terms of its feature set and is known for its user-friendly interface and extensive documentation. However, amCharts uses a different licensing model, which may be a consideration for some projects.
Highcharts is a JavaScript charting library based on SVG rendering. This project includes Stock, the financial charting package, the Maps package for geo maps and the Gantt package.
This package is intended for supporting client-side JavaScript charting through bundlers like Parcel or Webpack and environments like Babel or TypeScript. If you intend to generate static charts on the server side, use the Highcharts node.js Export Server instead.
License
Please note that commercial use of Highcharts requires a commercial license. For testing and demonstration purposes (POC), Highcharts can be used free of charge. Educational and personal projects are qualified for a free license. Read more about licenses in the Highcharts shop.
Links
Download and install Highcharts
Please note that there are several ways to use Highcharts. For general installation instructions, see the docs.
Use our CDN
Instead of downloading, you can use our CDN to access files directly. See code.highcharts.com for details.
<script src="https://code.highcharts.com/highcharts.js"></script>
Install from npm
See npm documentation on how to get started with npm.
npm install --save highcharts
Install nightly build
See highcharts documentation for installing the nightly build.
Note that we do not recommend the use of the nightly build in production environments as it may contain bugs and is not considered stable.
npm install --save highcharts/highcharts-dist#nightly
Install from Bower
See Bower documentation on how to get started with Bower.
bower install highcharts
Load Highcharts as a CommonJS module
Highcharts is using an UMD module pattern, as a result it has support for CommonJS.
The following examples presumes you are using npm to install Highcharts, see Download and install Highcharts for more details.
var Highcharts = require('highcharts');
require('highcharts/modules/exporting')(Highcharts);
Highcharts.chart('container', {
});
Load Highcharts as an ES6 module
Since Highcharts supports CommonJS, it can be loaded as an ES6 module with the use of transpilers. Two common transpilers are Babel and TypeScript. These have different interpretations of a CommonJS module, which affects your syntax.
The following examples presumes you are using npm to install Highcharts, see Download and install Highcharts for more details.
Babel
import Highcharts from 'highcharts';
import Exporting from 'highcharts/modules/exporting';
Exporting(Highcharts);
Highcharts.chart('container', {
});
TypeScript
import * as Highcharts from 'highcharts';
import * as Exporting from 'highcharts/modules/exporting';
Exporting(Highcharts);
Highcharts.chart('container', {
});