Comparison of Chart Libraries for SwiftUI

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I want to add charts to my SwiftUI iOS App, Zettl. For that, I am going to compare the following libraries:

• ivanschuetz/SwiftCharts
• denniscm190/stock-charts
• spacenation/swiftui-charts
• AppPear/ChartView
• danielgindi/Charts

Requirements

My needs are

• bar charts for categorial data. Extra: I need images as labels.
• line charts for time-scale data. With multiple lines. Bonus points if I don't have to care about the time distribution, i.e. can enter timestamps and they are spread correctly.
• pie charts for relative comparisons. Here, the magic lies in good annotations.

SwiftCharts

• URL: https://github.com/ivanschuetz/SwiftCharts
• License: Apache 2
• Maturity:
  • Created May 2015 ✅
  • ~2 backup contributors, 32 in total
  • Last big changes 2019 😬
  • Last commit to main: 8 days ago 👍

Supported Chart Types

• Bar Charts ✅
• Line Charts ✅ (didn't check)
• Donut Charts ✅ (didn't check)
• more

Code

• Bar Chart

Result

• integration of UIView in SwiftUI sucks
• Docs don't help a lot
• Examples are very complex

Stock-Charts

• URL: https://github.com/denniscm190/stock-charts
• License: MIT
• Maturity:
  • Created April 2021 ⛲
  • Single-dev-project 👨‍💻
  • Ongoing development ✅
  • Last commit to main: 20 days ago 👍
  • Demo App: https://github.com/denniscm190/trades-demo

Supported Chart Types

• Bar Charts => as "Capsule" Charts, for one value only ❌
• Line Charts: without axis, only for this one specific use-case 🆗
• Pie Charts: ❌

Code

• Bar Chart
• Line Chart

Result

• Super easy to integrate
• But very limited to this one use case
• The code offers some good inspiration to base upon

SwiftUI Charts

• URL: https://github.com/spacenation/swiftui-charts
• License: MIT
• Maturity
  • Created Nov 2019 ✅
  • Single-dev-project 👨‍💻
  • Last big change in Oct 2020 😬
  • 2 open PRs
• Bug: Data is ordered in reverse
• Naming conflict: This package uses the same name as (the much older) https://github.com/danielgindi/Charts. To import both, I forked it to https://github.com/JannikArndt/swiftui-charts, changed the name and cherry-picked the open PRs.

Supported Chart Types

• Bar Charts, also stacked, not no axis or labels 😬
• Very simple line charts 🆗
• No pie charts ❌

Code

• Bar Chart
• Line Chart

Result

• Easy to integrate
• But quite buggy
• No axis-options

AppPear/ChartView

• URL: https://github.com/AppPear/ChartView
• License: MIT
• Maturity
  • Created continuously between Jun 2019 and today ✅
  • Version 2 is currently in beta
  • Only small contributions from others

Supported Chart Types

• Bar Charts ✅ (no axis though)
• Line Charts ✅ (with multiple lines, no axis)
• Pie Charts ✅ (no labels)

Code

• Bar Chart
• Line Chart
• Pie Chart

Result

• Nice library for that particular style, but cannot be changed to view axis / labels / more things

danielgindi/Charts

• URL: https://github.com/danielgindi/Charts
• License: Apache 2
• Maturity
  • Created Mar 2015 🕸
  • Ongoing maintenance by second dev
  • 4 devs with larger contributions

Supported Chart Types

• Bar Charts ✅ (even horizontal, with every option you can think of)
• Line Charts ✅
• Pie Charts ✅

Code

• Bar Chart: https://github.com/JannikArndt/SwiftUI-Charts-Playground/blob/main/ChartsPlayground/Charts/ChartsBarChart.swift
• Line Chart: https://github.com/JannikArndt/SwiftUI-Charts-Playground/blob/main/ChartsPlayground/Charts/ChartsLineChart.swift
• Pie Chart: https://github.com/JannikArndt/SwiftUI-Charts-Playground/blob/main/ChartsPlayground/Charts/ChartsPieChart.swift

Result

• By far the most comprehensive library
• No docs, references the Android docs, but good amount of demos
• Many third-party tutorials, for example this one that explains the integration into SwiftUI
• The amount of options is a little overwhelming, and the defaults are insane, so you have to go through the options.

Conclusion

I was close to building my own version of the required charts, until I tried danielgindi/Charts. While it is a heavyweight, I will give it a shot.

You can try out the demo-app with all five libraries here: https://github.com/JannikArndt/SwiftUI-Charts-Playground.