Looking for third party charting options for ColdFusion

Question

A project I am working on makes extensive use of CFCHART. We have run into quite a few usage and performance issues with CFCHART, so I have been tasked to look at some third-party solutions to try out and recommend. Anybody have some reviews and recommendations they'd care to share?

Answer 1

Consider outputting the raw data and using JavaScript / Canvas to generate the charts on the fly. The load is the given to the client. This makes it easier for screenreaders and people who like to save the data to access it as well.

Some JS charting libraries:

• http://code.google.com/apis/chart/
• http://omnipotent.net/jquery.sparkline/
• http://code.google.com/p/flot/
• http://codecanyon.net/item/graphup-jquery-plugin/108025?redirect_back=true&ref=1stwebdesigner&clickthrough_id=23945276
• http://www.highcharts.com/

Answer 2

Not dependent on your server side technology (e.g. irrelevant to the fact that you're using CF), I have recently started playing around with HighCharts (http://www.highcharts.com/), and have been very impressed.

Bear in mind, it's not free for commercial use, but you didn't specify as to any such restrictions. Although their pricing seems pretty fair (see http://www.highcharts.com/license)

Answer 3

The Wijmo jQuery library has some nice charting widgets. http://wijmo.com/