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Published June 7th, 2017 by Geoff Hoppe in Business Intelligence
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What’s the power of data visualizations? Intelligence Blog
each month.
Well, I could tell you that professional football players
suffer a lot of injuries, and that those injuries, of Enter Your Email
course, occur in different percentages based on body
parts. I could spend a whole paragraph yakking about ✓ Subscribe

body parts, freak accidents, and what a violent game

football is.

Or, I could just show you this. Follow Us

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That’s the power of data visualizations: they create Solutions For Small
elaborate stories as quickly as recalling a memory. As Businesses

Gartner analyst Martin Kihn observed (full content

available to Gartner clients):

Want to Write
Static data — statistics alone — will for Capterra?
persuade few. The visualization must Join our software
expert blogging
communicate a situation that is having an community, learn more
impact and warrants a thoughtful about our editorial
guidelines, and
decision. The visualization has to show
propose a topic you'd
some kind of movement. Something like to write about.

needs to happen. In short, the 📝 Pitch Your Post!

visualization needs to tell a story.

Unless you want to revert to high school mode and tell

that story with posterboard and magic markers, data
visualization software is the best way to narrate your
data. However, data visualization software is
expensive, and, unlike in high school, your parents
probably won’t help you pay for this. Also? The
information you’re illustrating is probably complex, and
beyond the range of a twelve-marker box. If only there
were free options to visualize your data…

And there are! One of these free and open source data
visualization software can help you tell stories that
compelling with your data.

Free or Open Source Software

A caveat: Daniel Harris at Software Advice said it best:

“‘open source’ is not a synonym for ‘free,’ ‘easy,’ or ‘DIY.’”

The “source” in open source is “source code,” so if you

can’t code, i.e. write computer programs, the “open”
part is sort of moot.

I’d learn how to code for Shakira. Shouldn’t you?There

are some tools, such as Tableau Public, BIRT, and
Pentaho that do data visualization (and more), that I
didn’t include in this post because I consider them
more business intelligence software. You can nd
those reviews over at Capterra’s Top 8 Free and Open
Source Business Intelligence Software post.

Free tools are to data visualization what a Weber grill

is to cooking: they’re simple and no frills, but you can
also produce decent (sometimes impressive) stuff if
you know how to work it. In a lot of cases, the free tools
are easy to use: sign up for an account, import data
(.csv, Google Sheet, or what les are accepted), pick or
make your visualization.

Sign up for an account

 Import data (CSV, Google Sheet, or what les are
accepted)
Pick or make your visualization

Open source tools are more like free books… written in

another language. You don’t pay, but unless you’ve got
an employee who speaks the language (whether a
programming or spoken language), it won’t be that
useful. You’ll recognize a few words, but the grammar
and syntax will be indecipherable.

Thus, this list is separated into free tools for non-

techies, and open source tools that require coding
skills. This list is organized alphabetically, because I’m
not one to try and improve on the alphabet.

Free data visualization software

1. Augl

Do you want to turn spreadsheets into mobile-

optimized visualizations? Augl founders Megan Matt
and Jeff Krantz did, so they created Augl. Augl allows
you to convert spreadsheets (CSV, Google Sheets) into
graphs that can be easily shared.
The interface is simple—just import a le, and Augl
turns the information into cards that you can turn into
visualizations.

2. Candela

Candela is part of Kitware’s Resonant data and

analytics platform. Jeffrey Baumes, Kitware’s Assistant
Director of Scienti c Computing, describes what
makes Candela unique: “Candela interfaces to several
of the more cutting edge data visualization tools and
normalizes them with a common API, so you don’t need
to learn many different coding styles for each library.”

You will, however, need to know Javascript, as that’s

the language used in Candela’s library. Candela use is
made easier by its companion application Resonant
Lab. That interface is “just a web application,” says
Baumes. Users can “basically point and click to connect
their data to the visualization.”
Have you used Candela? Leave a review!

3. Chartblocks

Chartblocks, like many of these free programs,

basically does the same thing that made Windows so
successful: replace the code with a visual interface so
anyone can use it. In Chartblocks’ case, that visual
interface is their chart designer, which guides you
through the process.

With its free version, you can make up to 30 charts,

export the charts as PNG les (no vector graphics in
this version), and get up to 5,000 monthly views. You
can’t make your charts private with this, though, so
don’t go charting your favorite passwords, or your
friends’ social security numbers. (Though that last one
might not get you in trouble, so it’s your call.)

Have you used Chartblocks? Leave a review!

4. Charted

If you’re happy with line graphs or stacked bar charts,

or if you have info that looks good represented in one
of those graphs (revenue growth is one of those,
according to Martin Kihn), it’s hard to nd an easier
visualization tool than Charted. You just paste the link
to a le (they support .csv, .tsv, and Google
Spreadsheets), hit “go”, and get your graph. It’s a pared-
down option, but one that still looks sharp, and has a
learning curve simpler than peeling a banana.

5. Datawrapper

Datawrapper offers a range of pay versions, but if

you’re reading this, you’re probably more interested in
their free option.

The free version’s good for one user, but don’t let that
stop you from considering Datawrapper. If you’ve got a
small business, or are just looking to supplement a
presentation or report, this could be a viable option. It
is, however, only good for 10,000 views per chart, so if
you’re dealing with more customers, you’ll want to
consider upgrading to a paid version.

Datawrapper’s also optimized for mobile devices.

Given that “56 percent of consumer traf c to the
leading US websites is now from mobile devices,” that’s
a big positive for Datawrapper.

6. GanttPro

Looking for project management help? Gantt charts

are a great way to visualize overlapping tasks (read:
your life as a project manager). GanttPro Lite is a great,
free way to visualize one active project. It’s only good
for one user, but you’ll still get automatic scheduling,
and a range of Gantt chart templates.

7. Google Data Studio

Did you really think there wouldn’t be a Google
product on this list? Google has their own data
visualization program, Data Studio, that’s free, and of
the quality you’d expect from Google. Also, since it’s
Google, all their properties (AdWords, YouTube) can
connect with Data Studio.

If you’ve already got a Gmail account (or any Google

account), setup with Google Data Studio is as easy as a
few clicks. If you’ve already got a Google account, it’s
also probably the easiest to get started with of all the
products on this list. In keeping with Google’s usual for-
dummies design, all you have to do to start playing with
a visualization is copy one of the templates they
provide for you (unless you want to upload your own
data).

8. Lea et

Want to make an interactive map for a mobile-device-

optimized website (or desktop)? Look up Lea et. This
Javascript library can help you set a customizable map,
quickly and painlessly. You will need to know a bit of
coding, but if you do, the instructions to get started are
about six steps long.

Lea et’s list of plug-ins is massive. Looking to create

indoor maps? They’ve got you covered. Looking for
internet cartography instructions in Norwegian?
They’ve got that, too. Even if you want to be old school
and learn how to print a map, they’ve got you covered.

9. MyHeatMap

If you want your visualization to provide immediate

recognition, a heat map is a good way to go.
Travel website Rome2Rio used this heat map to gure out where to
expand.

Heat maps’ use of color makes them intuitive.

MyHeatMap has the same easy user experience as a lot
of other free software: drag, drop, (et voilà!) map. Be
sure that at least two of the rows are for latitude and
longitude, and that these values are included for all the
data points you want to map. The one downside is a
lack of privacy. MyHeatMap’s free version only offers
public maps, and those free maps only get 20 data
points for each. If you want to expand that number to
200,000 data points per map, spring for the $20/month
version.
The Predator sort of uses heat maps, though they’re of peoples’
bodies.

10. Openheatmap

The above is from Openheatmap, and it’s an image of

site owner Pete Warden’s friends and followers. The
redder the image, the more people there are. This is
the sort of tool that could help you tell a story about,
say, customer demographics. Where do your
customers live? A heat map instantly communicates
pro t by zip codes.

Creating a map is simple. You upload a CSV, Excel, or

Google Sheets le to Warden’s website, click a button
and get a map. It’ll live on his site, but you can link to it.
This is all to say that Openheatmap is about as simple
as sending an email with an attachment.

11. Palladio

Palladio is speci cally designed for history teachers,

but is also useful for businessmen. Palladio has a simple
drag-and-drop interface, and can convert CSV, TAB, or
TSV les. The range of visualizations you can make is
short (maps, galleries, graphs and lists), but if you’re
looking to make something like a map of customer
locations, or a gallery of customers with info about
them (see pic for example), Palladio could be useful.

12. Raw

Raw’s biggest bene t may be how idiot-proof it is. The

interface is easy to pick up. You drag and drop, then
click on the kind of visualization you want to make
from a chart. Among these free data visualization tools,
Raw may win the “best user interface” award for how
easy they make it to choose a chart and turn your data
into a visual.
13. Silk

Silk’s another free, easy visualization tool. Use it to

create a page that lives at a Silk domain. Silk
transforms your spreadsheet les (CSV, Google Sheets,
or Excel) into a range of visualizations, from bar charts
to donut charts to spread graphs.

A few heads-ups: Be sure your spreadsheet has a row

with category names at the top, and make sure your
data doesn’t have any merged cells or nested tables.
Also, all data on Silk is publicly visible, so don’t share
anything con dential.

Have you used Silk? Leave a review!

14. Tableau Public

Tableau Public is the business intelligence giant’s free

offering, and it doesn’t disappoint. You get up to 10 GB
of storage, the program has a drag-and-drop interface,
and you get up to 15 million rows per workbook.

The downside is that you can only save to your public

pro le, so maybe avoid that visualization with potential
leads, yearly revenue, or everyone’s blood type (I’m
sure some company, somewhere, does that, and I don’t
judge).

The good news about the new version is that it’s

optimized for tablets and mobile devices. Moreover, it
connects to a decent range of data sources, beyond just
the standard Excel and CSV les. If you work with R or
JSON, Tableau Public can help you out. Tableau Public
also connects directly to Google Sheets, so if you’re
one of the three million businesses using the Google
Suite, you can be visualizing data before the
afternoon’s out.

If you’re interested in the sort of visualizations you can

create with Tableau Public, check out their online
gallery of public visualizations. These are on the more
sophisticated side, but they show you how much you
can do with a free membership. “How Safe Are Ivy
League Schools” is especially eye-opening.

15. Timeline

Timelines are to history what directions are on maps:

they show how one thing led to another. Timelines can
also be a great way to enliven reports, especially when
a tool like Timeline allows you to design and embed
them for free. If you’ve got a Google Drive account, just
make a Google Spreadsheet using a template Timeline
provides, embed it on your website, and you’ve got
something as slick as this article’s timeline on the
spread of ISIS (you’ll have to scroll down a bit), which
was made with this tool.

Open Source Data Visualization

Software
16. Chartist.js

Come for the animations, stay for the free data

visualization. If you’re looking to get started, fast (as in,
you’re reading this article because you need to make a
chart by close of business today), Chartist recommends
you “get things up and running by using the Chartist.js
CSS les.”

17. ColorBrewer

If you’re making a map and want the colors to pop,

ColorBrewer’s a good choice. ColorBrewer has 35
basic color schemes for any map you may be making.
The schemes are designed so that the colors don’t look
too similar. Though ColorBrewer isn’t mapping
software itself, it will make your maps look better.

18. D3.JS

If you know Javascript, and you want to create images,

the D3.JS library will make you happier than a 6-year-
old with one of those real-ish lightsabers. D3.JS is one
of the major Javascript data visualization libraries, and
it’s used by some big-name players, including The New
York Times and Datameer.
19. Google Charts

Ah, Google. If life was Dune, Google would be the

Spice. If life was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory, Google would be the oompa-loompas, eerily
omnipresent and entirely necessary to the functioning
of the world.

THE DATA MUST FLOW

Google Charts can be your company’s data oompa-

loompas. How impressive is their range of
visualizations? They’ve got Sankey diagrams. I’ve been
reading about free data visualization tools for several
days now, and have yet to have seen that term. That’s
like an oompa-loompa who can do your taxes while he
sings about “accidental” borderline child murder.

Vico, Ronnie, and Ed the Shiv are

mixing Veruca’s body in with the
foundation.

20. Plotly

Plotly’s a great way to make visuals and share them

with other people. You can design not only charts, but
dashboards and presentations, too. Plotly offers
libraries and toolboxes for R, Python, Matlab and
Javascript.

Have you used Plotly? Leave a review!

21. Polymaps

Polymaps is a javascript library that provides you with

the tools to create interactive maps. Polymaps uses
scalable vector graphics (SVG), and the results you can
get are impressive: this example uses k-clustering to
depict crime in Oakland, CA.

22. Weave
Weave is a free, open source data visualization
program. Its biggest claim to fame is that it’s the only
ADA-compliant visualization platform. That means,
among other things, it’ll give you a description of what
changed as it happens. Setup instructions are relatively
simple and straightforward.

More free and open source data

visualizations?

If I’ve missed any free and open source data

visualizations, please let me know in the comments
below!

➡ Looking for Business Intelligence software?

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Intelligence software solutions.

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Tags: data visualization data visualization tools

free and open source data visualization tools

👤 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Geoff Hoppe
Geoff Hoppe writes about business intelligence and eld
service management for Capterra. His background is in
education and higher ed, but he’s interested these days in
how small businesses can use software to be more agile
and ef cient. When he’s not reading and writing about
software, he’s probably reading and writing about history,
 music and comic books, nding new hikes throughout
Virginia, or following the Fighting Irish.

💬 COMMENTS
Comment by Dice on February 18, 2017 at 7:21 am

Is this something i really could do with lament

and a 3D IMAGES printer?

Comment by Patrick Martin on April 18, 2017 at 3:59 pm

Great list! Some of these I’d never heard of before

and will have to check out.

I’d also like to also submit 2 of my efforts for

consideration.

https://dexvis.net/
https://dexjs.net/

Pingback by 2017 GeoCon Wish List: Part II | eSpatially New

York on July 21, 2017 at 10:17 am

[…] with the release of  ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server

and there are also a bunch of well documented free
open source data visualization software packages
available which several of the start-ups in metro NYC
are using.   Increasingly the data […]

Comment by Titty William on August 11, 2017 at 6:43 am

These Tools looks Amazing

Comment by Jared Bloom on August 18, 2017 at 2:13 pm

Nice up-to-date list. May I suggest another free chart

editor for non-programmers – http://charte.ca ?
 Comment by AK on December 22, 2017 at 12:03 pm

Want to add one more useful tool for data

visualization and analysis. Take a look at
WebDataRocks free web reporting tool. It’s simple
tool that allows to create interactive report in real-
time. You can see demo:
https://www.webdatarocks.com/demos/javascript-
pivot-table-demo/

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