Alternative for flash charts
All of us now-a-days hear the HTML5 buzz. And as HTML5 is coming up with many features and capabilities. With this, Flash has taken a back seat. The same was required in the application on which I am working. I had to explore all the Javascript frameworks/ API, which are capable of HTML5 supported charts. Which would work on any browser, without the need of a flash player.
After some google search I found some options for my task. Following are some frameworks which support pure Javascript charts:
1. AmCharts
2. RGraph
3. ExtJS
All of the above are Javascript libraries. The last, i.e, ExtJS is a Component Library along with Charting API in it. Hence, it is appropriate to choose this as a Charting tool, if you are already using ExtJS UI components.
ExtJS framework consists of Charting API version 3.4.0 onwards. But the library does not provide as many types and variants of charts as does AmCharts and RGraph. Moreover, AmCharts has the most variants of all the three. If one needs an API which is only for Charting, AmCharts and RGraph are good options.
These provide great looking charts, also with an option of 3D effect. Both these are Open source API. AmCharts provides about 40 chart types, whereas RGraph provides 20. So, the choice is yours, depending on the need of your application.
