Top 10 Python Libraries for Data Visualization (2024)

In today’s age, a lot of data is being generated daily. Analyzing these data for certain patterns and trends in the raw format is challenging. Here’s how data visualization comes into play. Data visualization is the process of understanding the data in a more detailed way, using graphical representations such as graphs and plots. Data Visualization with Tableau Certification will equip you with critical skills and enable you to make organized pictorial representations, making them easy to understand, observe and analyze in the future.

How To Use Python For Data Visualization?

Python has now emerged as the go-to language in data science, and it is one of the essential skills required in data science. Python libraries for data visualization are designed with their specifications. Obtaining Business Intelligence Training will assist you in gaining key insight into the data through different graphical representations.

Here are the steps to use Python for data visualization.

1. Importing Packages

Python in data visualization should start by importing the necessary packages. The packages include Pandas for processing, Matplotib for visualization, seaborn for advanced visuals, and Numpy for calculations.

2. Importing And Cleaning Data

This is an important step as a perfect and clean dataset is required for distinct and perfect data visualization.

3. Creating Visualization

You can create different types of visualization, from basic to advanced charts. For instance, a line chart is the most common visualization chart used to observe trends, while a bar chart represents ranking values.

Most Popular Python Libraries For Data Visualization

Top 10 Python Libraries for Data Visualization (1)

There are many data visualization libraries in Python that are built to perform numerous functions, contain tools, and have methods to manage and analyze data. Each has a particular objective while managing images, textual data, data mining, data visualization, and more. Here we have listed the top 10 popular python libraries for data visualization.

1. Matplotlib

Matplotlib is one of the best python data visualization libraries for generating powerful yet simple visualization. It is a 2-D plotting library that can be used in various ways, including Python, iPython sheets, and Jupyter notebooks.

Key Features

  • It supports various types of graphical representation, including line graphs, bar graphs, and histograms.
  • It can work with the NumPy arrays and border SciPy stack.
  • It has a huge number of plots for understanding trends and making correlations.

Pros And Cons

  • Interactive platform
  • Versatile library

Not ideal for time series data

Installation

Click here to install Matplotlib

2. Plotly

The most popular data visualization library in Python is Plotly, which delivers an interactive plot and is easily readable to beginners. It is widely used for handling financial, geographical, statistical, and scientific data.

Key Features

  • Its robust API functions effectively in both local and web browser modes.
  • It is an interactive, open-source, and high-level visualization library.
  • It can be viewed in Jupyter notebooks, standalone HTML files, or even hosted online.

Pros And Cons

  • Offers contour plots, dimension chars, and dendrograms.
  • Allows 40 unique chart and plot types
  • Difficult to use

Installation

Click here to install Plotly

3. Seaborn

Seaborn is the best python library for data visualization, which offers a variety of visualized patterns. It is designed to work more compatible with Pandas data form and is widely used for statistical visualization.

Key Features

  • It performs the necessary mapping and aggregation to form information visuals.
  • It is integrated to explore and understand data in a better and more detailed way.
  • It offers a high level of a crossing point for creating beautiful and informative algebraic graphics.

Pros And Cons

  • Much more visually appealing representation
  • Switch to any other data format
  • Limited customizable options

Installation

Click here to install Seaborn

4. GGplot

GGplot is another popular data visualization library in Python, known as the python implementation of graphics grammar. It refers to the map of the data, with its aesthetic attributes including color, shape, and geometric objects like points and bars.

Key Features

  • It allows you to build informative visualization substantially with improved representations
  • It is integrated with Panda to store data in a data frame.
  • It is based on ggplot2, an R programming language plotting system.

Pros And Cons

  • Documentation is simple and easy to follow.
  • Save method to discuss and exhibit plots
  • Not suitable for creating highly customized graphics.

Installation

Click here to install GGplot

5. Altair

Altair is regarded as one of the declarative statistical visualization libraries for data visualization in Python. It indicates that we need to define the links in the data columns, which are the x-axis and y-axis, while creating any visuals.

Key Features

  • It has a user-friendly and consistent API built on Vega-lite JSON specification.
  • Its source is present on GitHub
  • It is dependent on python 3.6, entry points, jsonschema, NumPy, Pandas, and Toolz

Pros And Cons

  • Create the best visuals with minimal code
  • Holds declarative grammar on both visuals and interaction

Installation

Click here to install Altair

6. Bokeh

Bokeh is another interactive python library for data visualized for modern web browsers. This is best suitable for developing interactive plots and dashboards for complex or streaming data assets.

Key Features

  • It has a broad range of intuitive graphs which can be leveraged to form solutions.
  • It is well-known for creating custom-made visualizations.
  • It includes various generation and plot chart methods, including box plots, bar plots, and histograms.

Pros And Cons

  • Highest level of control for the rapid creation of charts
  • Many graphs with fewer codes and higher resolution
  • No pre-set defaults, and users have to define them each time.

Installation

Click here to install Boken

7. Pygal

Pygal is one of the most popular and best python data visualization libraries where the interactive plots are built using the pygal library. It allows you to download your visualization in various formations, including SVG. PNG, Browser, PyQuery, and more.

Key Features

  • It has three individual map packages to keep the compact module size.
  • It offers an interactive experience with data explorations, filtration, and more.
  • It is optimized with rich support, allowing users to be more visionary even in multiple complex problems.

Pros And Cons

  • It can provide output chats of data like SVGs.
  • Attractive char in a few code lines
  • Become slow with a large number of data points

Installation

Click here to install Pygal

8. Geoplotlib

Geoplotlib is another data visualization library of Python that allows the user to build maps and plot geographical data. This library is designed to handle the entire dataset, map projection, and tile download of the map automatically.

Key Features

  • It has the toolbox used to draw various maps, including heatmaps, dot-density maps, and choropleths.
  • It has an interface of an object-oriented programming language.
  • It also has excellent zooming and panning maps for distinct views.

Pros And Cons

  • Graphics rendering from OpenGL
  • Large datasets can be performed with excellent resolution
  • Enables hardware acceleration

Installation

Click here to install Geoplotlib

9. Folium

Folium is one of the easy-to-use data visualization python libraries to visualize and analyze data on an interactive leaflet map. The library utilizes OpenStreetMap, which provides the user with an excellent Google Maps experience with few codings.

Key Features

  • It has numerous built-in tilesets from various platforms, including Stamen, Mapbox, and OpenStreetMaps.
  • It is easy to add locations of other users with markets.
  • It also has different plugins and is capable of creating maps similar to plotly, Altari, and broken.

Pros And Cons

  • Employ various plugins
  • Easy to draw maps with markers
  • Complex to handle shapefiles

Installation

Click here to install Folium

10. Gleam

Gleam is the perfect python library for data visualization, made from the inspiration of the Shiney package of programming language. The users can develop the basic plot with gleam while building various fields on top, enabling easy filtration and sorting of data.

Key Features

  • It is used in the visualization and analysis of data in interactive web applications that take only python scripts.
  • It can work with any kind of data visualization of python language.
  • It doesn’t require the knowledge of HTML, CSS, or JavaScript.

Pros And Cons

  • Suits all types of library
  • Simple to filter and sort data

Installation

Click here to install Gleam

Usage Of Python Libraries For Data Visualization

Python is a dynamic, portable, interpreted, and object-oriented programming language that has its advantages in Computer vision, data science, machine learning, robotics, and so on. Data visualization in python libraries gives you many insights throughout the entire process of analysis.

Here are some benefits of python libraries for data visualization.

  1. Due to Python’s popularity, the features of python libraries inherited the simplicity and readability, making it user-friendly for people.
  2. There are numerous python data visualization libraries where some of which are tailor-made to fit your requirements.
  3. From importing data from excel sheets to processing datasets for analyzing time series, python libraries have all. For instance, Matplotlib is equipped with the necessary tools for effective data visualization.

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Career Options In Data Visualization

There are various options for a data visualization career available across multiple industries. If you are interested in the field, it will be helpful to learn the roles and responsibilities of each position to make more informed career choices. Here are some data visualizations of career options.

  1. Data specialist (Rs. 7.0 Lakhs) – They convert data of different forms, including paperwork and physical documents, to digital formations for further data visualization.
  2. Data visualization engineer (Rs. 12.6 Lakhs. )– They transform complicated data into easy-to-understand information which is accessible to everyone.
  3. Data Visualization consultant (Rs. 6.1 Lakhs.) – They perform various tasks including better handling the data, extracting more useful insight, finding solutions to issues, and making better decisions.

Summing Up

Data visualization is one of the critical aspects that need to be addressed using effective visualization techniques. Are you ready to start your career path in Data visualization? Enrolling in the comprehensive Data Visualization with QlikView Course will be your powerful guide in learning how to use Python to analyze data and create effective and beautiful visualizations. It is designed for both beginners and experienced developers who want to build a promising future in data science.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What is a data visualization library?

Data visualization libraries are tools designed to aid users in understanding complex ideas and creating a visualization to depict the information. Python data visualization libraries play a critical role when you are working with large or complicated datasets, giving you in-depth insights.

2. Can Python be used for data visualization?

Data visualization in Python is one of the most utilized aspects of data science in today’s age. There are various python libraries for data visualization with unique features so that users can have better knowledge of datasets in a detailed way and with proper analysis.

3. How do you visualize data in Python?

Data visualization is the process of identifying trends and correlations in the data by representing it in the form of pictures. It is best to use leading python data visualization modules, including Matplotlib, Plotly, and others that suit your specific requirements.

Top 10 Python Libraries for Data Visualization (2)Top 10 Python Libraries for Data Visualization (3)

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Top 10 Python Libraries for Data Visualization (2024)

FAQs

What is the best library for data visualization in Python? ›

Top Python Libraries for Data Visualization
  1. Matplotlib. Matplotlib is a data visualization library and 2-D plotting library of Python It was initially released in 2003 and it is the most popular and widely-used plotting library in the Python community. ...
  2. Plotly. ...
  3. Seaborn. ...
  4. GGplot. ...
  5. Altair. ...
  6. Bokeh. ...
  7. Pygal. ...
  8. Geoplotlib.
Mar 8, 2024

Is there a better library than Matplotlib? ›

On the other hand, Seaborn is a higher-level library built on top of Matplotlib that provides more advanced visualizations out-of-the-box. Seaborn simplifies the process of creating complex visualizations by providing a set of pre-defined functions to create common plot types quickly.

What is the popular data Visualisation library in? ›

Matplotlib: Python's first data visualization library. It is still considered to be the most popular and widely used data visualization library. Matplotlib can create a variety of graphs, such as line graphs, scatter graphs, hist graphs, and interactive 2D graphs.

What Python library is similar to Tableau? ›

PyGWalker is a Python library that integrates Jupyter Notebook (or other jupyter-based notebooks) with Graphic Walker, an open-source alternative to Tableau.

Is Plotly or seaborn better? ›

Use Seaborn if you want to quickly create attractive statistical plots with minimal code and work with pandas DataFrames. Use Plotly if you want to create interactive web-based visualizations that can be easily shared and embedded.

Is Plotly better than Matplotlib? ›

A: Matplotlib and Plotly are Python libraries used for data visualization. Matplotlib is a popular library that is great for creating static visualizations, while Plotly is a more sophisticated tool that is better suited for creating elaborate plots more efficiently.

What is the most useful Python library? ›

Top 30 Python Libraries List
RankLibraryPrimary Use Case
1NumPyScientific Computing
2PandasData Analysis
3MatplotlibData Visualization
4SciPyScientific Computing
26 more rows

What is the most popular Python plotting library? ›

The most popular Python data visualization library is Matplotlib. This is in part because it's been around for over 2 decades but also because it's reliable and can create all the interactive charts you need.

Which Python library is more popular? ›

Matplotlib is widely recognized as the top visualization library in Python, and our data confirms this. It's interesting to see the actual numbers that show how popular it is compared to newer libraries like Seaborn or Plotly.

What is the king of data visualization? ›

Bar Charts : The King of Data Visualization.

What are the big three in data visualization? ›

The three most common categories of data visualization are graphs, charts, and maps. By choosing the right type of visualization for your data, you can reveal insights, tell a story, and guide decision-making. So let's explore which visualizations are right for your data.

Which Python library is used for data analysis? ›

Pandas (Python data analysis) is a must in the data science life cycle. It is the most popular and widely used Python library for data science, along with NumPy in matplotlib. With around 17,00 comments on GitHub and an active community of 1,200 contributors, it is heavily used for data analysis and cleaning.

Why Python over Tableau? ›

Tableau is a powerful Business Intelligence (BI) tool, but there are limitations; that's where Python language comes to the rescue. Python is popular programming among the data community. You can use it to extract, clean, process, and apply complex statistical functions to the data.

Why use Tableau over Python? ›

The integration of Tableau with Python allows users to leverage the strengths of both tools. Python can handle complex data manipulation tasks, statistical analysis, and machine learning models, while Tableau can provide a user-friendly interface for interactive visualizations and sharing insights.

What are the best data visualization tools? ›

Some of the best data visualization tools include Google Charts, Tableau, Grafana, Chartist, FusionCharts, Datawrapper, Infogram, and ChartBlocks etc. These tools support a variety of visual styles, be simple and easy to use, and be capable of handling a large volume of data.

What Python library pandas is using for data visualization? ›

Pandas visualization is built on top of the matplotlib library, which provides a wide range of customizable plots. In this article, we will explore the basics of data visualization with pandas .

Is Python good for data visualization? ›

In this field, Python enthusiasts continue to advocate that Python offers some of the best data visualization libraries available, making data analysis quicker and easier than ever before.

Is Matplotlib still the best Python library for static plots? ›

As with many things, this depends entirely on your requirements. If you have very specific needs, or like to be able to precisely configure every element of your plot, then I would argue Matplotlib is still far and away the single best library available for plotting in the world of Python.

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