Build great looking charts with PHP, Javascript or Flash

n this article, I’ll be listing the cream of the crop in charts, graphs and data visualization. From creating basic 2D charts to generating data visualization with complex datasets. Our list of charts in PHP, Javascript and flash is a must see for any serious developer.

1. Fusion Charts

FusionCharts v3 helps you create animated & interactive charts for web & enterprise applications. It is the industry’s leading enterprise-grade charting component that functions seamlessly on PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and a majority of other mobile devices.

2. Maani

bXML/SWF Charts is a simple, yet powerful tool to create attractive charts and graphs from XML data. Create an XML source to describe a chart, then pass it to this tool’s flash file to generate the chart. The XML source can be prepared manually, or generated dynamically using any scripting language (PHP, ASP, CFML, Perl, etc.). XML/SWF Charts makes the best of both the XML and SWF worlds. XML provides flexible data generation, and Flash provides the best graphic quality.

3. JP Graph

JpGraph is an Object-Oriented Graph creating library for PHP >= 5.1 The library is completely written in PHP and ready to be used in any PHP scripts (both CGI/APXS/CLI versions of PHP are supported).

4. Open Flash Chart

Open Flash Chart, is open source. It is free to use <i>and</i> you get the source code to fiddle with!

5. Free PHP Graph/Chart

FusionCharts Free is a completely free and open-source Flash charting component. It empowers you to create animated and interactive Flash charts for your web applications, desktop applications and presentations Some of the highlights are 22 popular charts like Column, Line, Pie, Bar, Area, Stacked, Candlestick and Funnel Chart, that look the same across all browsers Animated and interactive charts that make your applications look great,Works with PHP, ASP.NET, JSP, ColdFusion, Python, RoR, simple HTML pages or even PowerPoint Presentations.

6. J powered

The PHP graphing scripts provide a very easy way to embed dynamically generated graphs and charts into PHP applications and HTML web pages. The graphing software is very easy to use and it is perfectly possible to add professional quality real time graphing to web pages / applications within minutes.

7. jQuery Visualize Plugin

A while ago, we came up with a technique for creating accessible charts and graphs that uses JavaScript to scrape data from an HTML table and generate bar, line, area, and pie chart visualizations using the HTML5 canvas element. This technique provides a simple way to generate charts, but more importantly, because it bases the chart on data already in the page in an HTML table element, it is accessible to people who browse the web with a screen reader or other assistive technology, or with browsers that don’t fully support JavaScript or HTML5 Canvas. We packaged it as a downloadable jQuery plugin called Visualize.

8. Highcharts

Highcharts is a charting library written in pure JavaScript, offering an easy way of adding interactive charts to your web site or web application. Highcharts currently supports line, spline, area, areaspline, column, bar, pie and scatter chart types.

9. Flot

Flot is a pure Javascript plotting library for jQuery. It produces graphical plots of arbitrary datasets on-the-fly client-side.The focus is on simple usage (all settings are optional), attractive looks and interactive features like zooming and mouse tracking.The plugin works with Internet Explorer 6/7/8, Firefox 2.x+, Safari 3.0+, Opera 9.5+ and Konqueror 4.x+ with the HTML canvas tag (the excanvas Javascript emulation helper is used for IE).

10. Sparklines

This jQuery plugin generates sparklines (small inline charts) directly in the browser using data supplied either inline in the HTML, or via javascript.The plugin is compatible with most modern browsers and has been tested with Firefox 2+, Safari 3+, Opera 9, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 6, 7 & 8.Each example displayed below takes just 1 line of HTML or javascript to generate.The plugin was written by Gareth Watts for Splunk Inc and released under the New BSD License.

11. Plot

jqPlot is a plotting and charting plugin for the jQuery Javascript framework. jqPlot produces beautiful line, bar and pie charts with many features such as Numerous chart style options, Date axes with customizable formatting, Up to 9 Y axes, Rotated axis text, Automatic trend line computation, Tooltips and data point highlighting and Sensible defaults for ease of use.

12. AM charts

AmCharts is a set of flash and JavaScript (HTML5) charts for your websites and Web-based products. AmCharts can extract data from simple CSV or XML files, or they can read dynamic data generated with PHP, .NET, Java, Ruby on Rails, Perl, ColdFusion, and many other programming languages.

13. Flashloaded

The flashCharts consists of a set of five highly attractive data-driven Flash components that can be used to create dynamic and static charts with ease. These components have been designed so that they can be used by both designers and developers. Just drag the component to the stage, set the source parameter, create the source file and your chart is ready. The chart data is fed through an external XML file which means that the data can be updated without editing the Flash file.

14. Zing Chart

ZingChart makes building unique Flash charts and graphs easy. With a quick installation process, an intuitive chart builder and categorized documentation, you can quickly access the code you need to build powerful visualizations from your data. Follow the simple steps below to get started creating interactive and impactful charts and graphs.

15. Fly Charts

FlyCharts is our new version (2.0) of flash charts component. The second version brings you more ways to visualize your data, much more rich and customizable interface, fast and easy tuning of your component. And please note – it’s still free for private persons, still tiny and fast!