About ZingChart
The ZingChart project emerged out of the development of a deep Web analytics system that needed to add standard charts to the mix. Unfortunately, the state of the art Flash and <canvas> based graphing systems kept buckling under the volume of data provided and lacked the required flexibilty, so the Zingchart project was born in December 2008 and released about one year later.
Our Mission
The ZingChart mission is to provide a charting and visualization system that is:
We think that ZingChart meets our mission firmly on its initial release and we only plan to get better.
Flexibility
The product has 100s of features and can be used to create both visually stunning charts as well as horrid info graphics; You simply are not limited. If you want a draggable, lime green, 3-d legend, complete with a background image over the center of your graph, you can do it. Who are we to tell you that isn't allowed! We aren't infographic snobs-one person's ugly chart is another person's pay raise.
Scalable
Attention competitors, plotting 50 or 100 points isn't going to cut it in the real world. We'll plots thousands of values no problem. Of course be realistic. If you ship a 150,000 record packet at us, no amount of code trickery is going to make the download and parsing fast. We are fast for thousands of points and you can use built-in interactivity to fetch more data on demand. Drill down to your hearts content. Oh, and unlike a few folks out there, it isn't synthasized data that is making our demos fast.
Interactive
What good is a Web based graph over paper if you can't interact with it? Roll over a ZingChart and show annotations, follow an animated guide to see plot values more easily, zoom in and out, use a loupe to see scatter values up close, show and hide objects, type the graph to a live data provider, relate graphs so you can click into them or even to relate reports. Many features are built-in and we have a JavaScript API for many features as well.
Modern
ZingChart uses the latest technology appropriately. We use Ajax to fetch data. We are JavaScript friendly. We use JSON for config and data packets. Flash with ActionScript 3 and yes we also use Canvas too. HTML5 is indeed alive. For us, modern means it works everywhere now, including an iPad, iPhone, or any other device you might encounter, not that it works sometime in the future.
Fast
We already mentioned that ZingChart can scale, but it also does what it does in a slim package. The entire library is around 270Kb and that includes all graph types. Some competitors can't even do a single pie graph with that. This can even allow you to create numerous graphs on screen in the same canvas.
Your Concerns?
Of course with anything, there are always the "what abouts" and the "why do you do that" and so on. We aren't oblivious, so we'll address the concerns that we already know and wait for you to tell us what we don't.
It isn't free
Hello people, we gotta eat too. If you buy our software, we promise to keep on working on it, fixing bugs, listening to your feature requests, and as a bonus we can pay our rent. If you really need free, you can use our free branded version so you can promote our name far and wide. Of course that really isn't free and also the look will be a canned one and our logo will always be there. Our pay version is very affordable compared to like competitors (sorry 3 or 4 graph types is not a like competitor).
It doesn't have infographic X!
No single library has everything and we too are missing a few advanced ones that are rarely used. Interestingly, we actually did many of them already. We have Treemaps for example and a very fine implementation rich in features. We have Wheel charts also done. We even have a few others in the can some, but we had to break out the library because the general population doesn't need this stuff and these rarely used features bloated the library.
However, take note ZingViz is on the way and you will be able to get a whole slew more types quite soon. If you have a particular interest drop us a line, but until then enjoy Pianos, Funnels, Gauges, Venn Diagrams and all sorts of other things most libraries lack or break out at separated costs.
It's too hard, there are way too many features
Well first you want features and then you don't? Ok we know our job is to hide complexity and we did a decent job at least we think so. However, if you want to explore and don't want to hack JSON packets and fool with JavaScript, well we have an answer for you - the ZingChart Builder.
ZingChart Builder is a full blown application that can be used to configure your graph just how you like it; You can even import data and it is highly interactive, allowing you to see your changes right there. With this tool you don't even need to learn the syntax if you don't want to. However, if you do, it is easy to learn the JSON structure as it is exposed. We have also built quite a bit of documentation. Rather than go by feature we went by graph as well. If you want to learn how to set a legend in the context of a pie or a bar (even though it is pretty much the same) we provide that, see for yourself. We present each feature of ZingChart in its own bite size chunk.
It doesn't make my data look good
We do provide a default theme, but infographic design is an art as well as a science. If you want help, we can do that (for a fee) or point you to others who can. Photoshop doesn't make you a graphic artist and ZingChart won't make your vizualizations instant data master pieces, but it will certainly help!
It's newer software, 1.x even.
Yep, it is. First things first, we actually tested this and didn't write the software as some lost weekend project (really some open source libraries wear that as a badge of courage?). Lots of dog fooding before we released, must be the old man who runs the company forcing that. Second, we are into defect-driven development. Let's say you do find an error, well it's really easy to report. Just right click and send away; It'll even send your JSON packet and take a capture of the render. If it is something worse, like a crash, email us at support@zingchart.com or fill out this form and give us the details and we'll fix it. Oh, and if you like we can call it 2.0 if it makes you feel better (some people do that - bad people!)
It's not *real* 3D
Nope it isn't. Frankly most of us didn't even want the quasi-3D we did. Real 3D is eye candy and in most infographics does nothing to add to understandability. And frankly, in many ways, it makes it completely non-understandable. Worse yet, in order to do real 3D we are going to explode file size and reduce the speed of the render. If we get enough votes we'll consider it, but we want to see some use cases.
You use Flash!
Yes, we use Flash. Our aim is not to promote Adobe nor to push (or bash) the "open Web" -- it is to visualize data. We find HTML5 canvas API very fast but it doesn't work everwhere, particularly Internet Explorer, and has some tremendously kludgey aspects. Adding interactive elements in <canvas> (even as simple as a tooltip) are a hack and a half and don't scale to large data sets. Font support is a beast across browser versions and attempting to add IE support by using JavaScript to translate to VML just isn't fast nor complete. Canvas has its place, and we support it already, but who knows, SVG may be the next 'big thing', especially with demand. Just know that our primary goal is visualization, not implementation.
Something Else
Maybe you have some other concern? Well if so don't be silent, let us know. We probably need to know and might want to address it ASAP. We promise we will only ignore you if you are terribly rude and even then, we still might respond once we get over our shock!
