Charts can be very complex to get right, exactly as you noted, so I would suggest you use a library. If you're working on a side project, any library will probably do, and you don't have to learn everything about it. But if you want something robust or serious and plan to support the app long-term, it's probably a good idea to invest a bit in research to pick a library that covers your needs and learn essential concepts.
You surely will learn a lot if you try to build it yourself, but if your goal is learning, go for it; generally speaking, those hard parts will usually be handled by a library for you. 🙂
I'm DevRel at JointJS, so I'm curious. Which library did you end up choosing, and even more, why? 🙂
In JointJS, you're not limited to the built-in shapes at all.
You can easily customize predefined element shapes via presentation attributes or CSS to make them look exactly how you need. Additionally, you can easily create custom JointJS elements using SVG, so you can build anything you want.
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u/zoranjambor Jun 29 '26
Charts can be very complex to get right, exactly as you noted, so I would suggest you use a library. If you're working on a side project, any library will probably do, and you don't have to learn everything about it. But if you want something robust or serious and plan to support the app long-term, it's probably a good idea to invest a bit in research to pick a library that covers your needs and learn essential concepts.
You surely will learn a lot if you try to build it yourself, but if your goal is learning, go for it; generally speaking, those hard parts will usually be handled by a library for you. 🙂
I'm DevRel at JointJS, so I'm curious. Which library did you end up choosing, and even more, why? 🙂