D3.Js vs. JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit vs. Preact vs. Refraction Comparison Chart

D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. D3 helps you bring data to life using HTML, SVG, and CSS. D3’s emphasis on web standards gives you the full capabilities of modern browsers without tying yourself to a proprietary framework, combining powerful visualization components and a data-driven approach to DOM manipulation. D3 allows you to bind arbitrary data to a Document Object Model (DOM), and then apply data-driven transformations to the document. For example, you can use D3 to generate an HTML table from an array of numbers. Or, use the same data to create an interactive SVG bar chart with smooth transitions and interaction. D3 is not a monolithic framework that seeks to provide every conceivable feature. Instead, D3 solves the crux of the problem: efficient manipulation of documents based on data. This avoids proprietary representation and affords extraordinary flexibility, exposing the full capabilities of web standards such as HTML, SVG, and CSS.

Preact provides the thinnest possible Virtual DOM abstraction on top of the DOM. It builds on stable platform features, registers real event handlers and plays nicely with other libraries. Most UI frameworks are large enough to be the majority of an app's JavaScript size. Preact is different: it's small enough that your code is the largest part of your application. That means less JavaScript to download, parse and execute - leaving more time for your code, so you can build an experience you define without fighting to keep a framework under control. Preact is fast, and not just because of its size. It's one of the fastest Virtual DOM libraries out there, thanks to a simple and predictable diff implementation. We automatically batch updates and tune Preact to the extreme when it comes to performance. We work closely with browser engineers to get the maximum performance possible out of Preact.