PHP :

  • Sparkline is a PHP library that produces Edward Tufte inspired “intense, simple, wordlike graphics”. I like the way sparklines spruce up text without interrupting its flow.
  • Libchart is a simple PHP charting library that reminds me of the core functionality of the Jpgraph. Simple to deploy and does the basics well.
  • Jpgraph can be used to create numerous types of graphs either on-line or written to a file. The range of functionality is very impressive and new features get added all the time. But basic use remains simple. Jpgraph is used by many Free software projects such as Mantis.
  • PEAR::Image_Graph was formerly known as GraPHPite. It supports a good choice of graph types, five types of data sources and many output formats.
  • Artichow is yet another small PHP charting library. Functionality is limited but it does look clean. The downside is that everything about it is in French… But that may be an upside if you are a French speaker !

Command-line and CGI :

  • Ploticus provides a C and Python API, and a Perl command line that can be called from CGI. It is a mature solution that is no longer on the cutting edge but still satisfy many users.

DHTML and Javascript :

  • Timeplot is a DHTML-based AJAXy widget for plotting time series and overlay time-based events over them (with the same data formats that Timeline supports). It has limited functionnality, but what it does looks very good and easy to integrate.
  • Plotkit is aimed at web applications that require plotting series of data in modern web browsers. It requires MochiKit and supports HTML Canvas and SVG, which makes it a cutting edge way to render graphics. It supports graphing from a dynamic table.
  • Plotr is a fork of Plotkit with no need for MochiKit. The result is an incredibly lightweight charting framework : only 12 KB !

Multiplatform :