What is your preferred way to produce charts in a Ruby on Rails web application?

I personally prefer JavaScript-based charts over Flash. If that's ok, also check out [High Charts][1]. A [Rails plugin][2] is also available.


[1]:

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GoogleCharts and Gruff charts are great, but sometimes they lack some features that I need for more scientific plotting. There is a gem for gnuplot which may be helpful for some of these situations.

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<a href="http://www.fusioncharts.com">FusionCharts</a> is a very good charting product. Works well with RoR. Their support and forums are good. The free version of this product has limited number of charts and features, but no watermark.

The new Google Visualization appears to produce charts that are of more varied type, better looking and interactive than Google Graphs.

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I 2nd the vote for [flot](

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). The latest version lets you do some animations and actions that I previously thought would only be possible via Flash. The documentation is fantastic. It simple to write by hand, but for simple cases it gets even easier with a Rails plugin called [flotilla](

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). You should check out the [examples page](

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) for a better idea of what it's capable of. The zooming and hover capabilities are especially impressive.

Regarding [amcharts][1], there's a "free" version with a very few restrictions that generates Flash charts including the 'chart by amCharts.com' mention.

And there's a nice plugin, [ambling][2], that provides you with some helper methods to easily add charts to your views. Please note that [amCharts.com reference documentation][3] is still a must to tailor the chart to your requirements.


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If you want quite sexy charts, easy to generate, and you can enable Flash, then you should definitely have a look at [maani.us xml/swf charts][1].

Some XML builder behind it and you're ready to go.


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FWIW, I'm not a fan of using Google Charts when fit & finish is important. I find that the variables for sizing, in particular, are unpredictable - the chart does its own thing.

I haven't yet played with Gruff/Bluff/etc., but for a higher-profile project I won't use Google Charts.

You should take a look at [Dmitry Baranovskiy's][1] Javascript library called [Raphaël][2].


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[ChartDirector][1]. Ugly API, but good, server-side image results. Self contained binary.


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