apache/echarts

A feature-rich interactive charting library from Apache — Chinese-developed (originally by Baidu), donated to the Apache Foundation, used heavily in Chinese enterprise BI and globally for data dashboards.

What it is

A JavaScript charting library with extensive chart types (line, bar, pie, scatter, heatmap, treemap, sunburst, geographic, 3D, networks, parallel coordinates, candlestick) and a declarative configuration API. Renders to Canvas or SVG. Apache 2.0 licensed under Apache Software Foundation governance.

Key features

20+ chart types including specialized ones (sankey, gauge, themeRiver, candlestick, parallel).
Declarative option config — describe what you want, ECharts handles drawing.
Canvas + SVG renderers selectable per chart.
WebGL extension (echarts-gl) for 3D charts and large-scale rendering.
i18n built in; locale files for many languages.
Responsive + dynamic data — setOption() patches the chart in place.
Apache 2.0 licensed under the ASF.

Tech stack

TypeScript primary.
Canvas + SVG render backends.
npm package: echarts.

When to reach for it

You're building data dashboards with a rich chart type palette.
You need specialized chart types (sankey, candlestick, geographic) not in lighter libraries.
You want ASF-governed library stability.

When not to reach for it

Bundle size matters — ECharts is heavy; use Chart.js or lighter alternatives for simple cases.
You're React-native and want components — apache-superset/superset UIs are React but ECharts itself is framework-agnostic; wrappers exist (echarts-for-react) but they're community-maintained.

Maturity signal

66k stars, 20k forks, Apache 2.0, actively maintained. 12+ years; Apache project since 2018. Open-issues count of 1,624 tracks per-chart-type feature requests.

Alternatives

Chart.js — simpler, lighter, fewer chart types.
D3 — lower-level primitives.
Plotly.js — broader scientific-charting focus.

Wiki: apache/echarts