recharts vs d3

data-viz

recharts

Recharts and D3.js represent two fundamentally different approaches to data visualization in JavaScript. Recharts is a high-level, declarative charting library built specifically for React applications, offering pre-built components like BarChart and LineChart that render standard visualizations with minimal code. D3.js is a low-level, imperative library that provides direct SVG manipulation and data binding primitives, enabling unlimited customization at the cost of significantly more implementation effort.

This comparison matters because choosing between them affects development velocity, bundle size, maintenance burden, and visualization capability. Recharts targets React developers building dashboards, admin panels, or analytics interfaces who need production-ready charts quickly. D3.js serves developers creating custom, interactive visualizations—financial trading interfaces, scientific simulations, or novel chart types—where pixel-perfect control justifies the learning curve and implementation time.

Head-to-Head

React Integration→ recharts wins

recharts

Native React components with hooks, lifecycle integration, and automatic re-rendering. Follows React patterns naturally—pass props, compose components, leverage context. Zero friction in Next.js or Create React App environments.

Requires manual integration—direct DOM manipulation conflicts with React's virtual DOM. Need useRef hooks, useEffect for lifecycle management, and careful coordination to prevent rendering conflicts. Workable but architecturally awkward in React apps.

Customization Depth→ d3 wins

recharts

Limited to provided chart types and their configuration props. Can customize colors, tooltips, axes, and animations through props, but cannot create fundamentally new visualization types without ejecting to custom components. Good for 80% of business chart needs.

Unlimited—you control every SVG path, circle, and text element. Can create any conceivable visualization: force-directed graphs, custom map projections, novel interactive diagrams. The only limit is your ability to calculate coordinates and manipulate DOM.

Implementation Speed→ recharts wins

recharts

A bar chart takes 10-15 lines of declarative JSX. Built-in responsive behavior, legends, tooltips, and animations. From npm install to production chart in under 30 minutes for standard use cases.

Same bar chart requires 80-150 lines managing scales, axes, data binding, enter/exit transitions. Must manually handle responsiveness, tooltips, legends. Expect several hours minimum even for experienced developers on basic charts.

Bundle Size Impact→ recharts wins

recharts

Core library ~95KB minified, tree-shakable by component. Importing BarChart and LineChart adds ~40KB combined. Reasonable overhead for React apps already including React/ReactDOM (~140KB).

Full D3 is ~280KB minified, but modular architecture allows importing specific modules (d3-scale, d3-axis). A minimal custom chart might import 30-50KB of D3 modules, but complex visualizations approach full bundle size. Larger total footprint.

Performance Characteristics→ d3 wins

recharts

SVG-based rendering performs well up to ~5,000 data points with React's reconciliation overhead. Beyond that, re-renders become expensive. No built-in canvas fallback or virtualization. Sufficient for most dashboard scenarios.

Learning Curve and Maintenance→ recharts wins

recharts

Intuitive for React developers—if you know JSX and props, you can create charts immediately. Documentation focuses on component APIs. Maintenance is straightforward component updates. Team onboarding takes hours.

Steep learning curve requiring understanding of SVG coordinate systems, scale functions, data joins, and D3's enter/update/exit pattern. Documentation is comprehensive but dense. Custom code requires ongoing maintenance as requirements evolve. Team onboarding takes weeks.

Verdict

Choose Recharts for React applications needing standard business charts—bar, line, area, pie, scatter plots—where speed of implementation and maintainability outweigh customization needs. It's the pragmatic choice for dashboards, admin panels, analytics interfaces, and SaaS products where charts support the application rather than being the application. The declarative API, built-in responsiveness, and React-native architecture make it objectively superior for this 80% use case, delivering production-ready visualizations in a fraction of D3's implementation time.

Choose D3.js when building custom, interactive visualizations that don't fit standard chart templates: network graphs, custom map projections, animated infographics, novel scientific visualizations, or when you need canvas-based rendering for extreme performance. D3 is also the right choice for non-React applications or when visualization IS the core product (data journalism, specialized analytics tools). Accept that you're trading 3-5x development time for unlimited creative control. If you find yourself fighting Recharts' constraints or writing extensive custom components, you've outgrown it and need D3's low-level power.

When to Use Each

If you are building a React admin dashboard with revenue charts, user growth metrics, and standard KPI visualizations → use Recharts because you'll ship in days rather than weeks, with minimal bundle overhead and code that any React developer can maintain.

If you are building an interactive network visualization showing complex relationships between entities with custom force simulations → use D3.js because Recharts doesn't support graph layouts, and you need D3's force simulation algorithms and fine-grained node positioning control.

If you are creating a financial trading platform requiring real-time candlestick charts with 50,000+ data points and custom technical indicators → use D3.js with canvas rendering because Recharts' SVG approach won't handle the data volume, and you need pixel-level control for custom overlay indicators.

If you are adding a simple trend chart to a Next.js marketing site showing monthly signup statistics → use Recharts because it integrates seamlessly with React Server Components, tree-shakes well, and provides responsive charts with 15 lines of code versus D3's 150+ line implementation for equivalent functionality.

Learn More

recharts →d3 →

Head-to-Head

React Integration→ recharts wins

recharts

Customization Depth→ d3 wins

recharts

Implementation Speed→ recharts wins

recharts

A bar chart takes 10-15 lines of declarative JSX. Built-in responsive behavior, legends, tooltips, and animations. From npm install to production chart in under 30 minutes for standard use cases.

Bundle Size Impact→ recharts wins

recharts

Core library ~95KB minified, tree-shakable by component. Importing BarChart and LineChart adds ~40KB combined. Reasonable overhead for React apps already including React/ReactDOM (~140KB).

Performance Characteristics→ d3 wins

recharts

Learning Curve and Maintenance→ recharts wins

recharts

Verdict

When to Use Each