What is billboard.js?

naver/billboard.js — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-06-26

★ 5,980TypeScriptAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5Setup · easy

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((Billboard.js))
    What it does
      Web charts
      Data visualization
    Chart types
      Bar and line
      Pie and donut
      Candlestick
      Scatter
    Tech
      Built on D3.js
      TypeScript
      React wrapper
    Features
      SVG rendering
      Semantic versioning
    Audience
      Web developers
      Dashboard builders

mindmap root((Billboard.js)) What it does Web charts Data visualization Chart types Bar and line Pie and donut Candlestick Scatter Tech Built on D3.js TypeScript React wrapper Features SVG rendering Semantic versioning Audience Web developers Dashboard builders

Click or tap to explore — scroll the page freely

What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Add interactive line or bar charts to a web page without writing D3.js code from scratch.

USE CASE 2

Display financial data using a candlestick chart in a React front-end application.

USE CASE 3

Generate chart images on a Node.js server without a browser for report generation.

USE CASE 4

Migrate an existing C3.js chart to billboard.js using the included migration guide.

What is it built with?

TypeScriptJavaScriptD3.jsReactNode.js

How does it compare?

	naver/billboard.js	reach/reach-ui	ufomiao/zcf
Stars	5,980	5,977	5,983
Language	TypeScript	TypeScript	TypeScript
Setup difficulty	easy	easy	easy
Complexity	2/5	2/5	2/5
Audience	developer	developer	developer

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 30min

So what is it?

Billboard.js is a JavaScript library for creating charts on web pages. It is built on top of D3.js, a lower-level graphics library, and wraps it with a simpler interface so you can produce bar charts, line charts, pie charts, scatter plots, and other common chart types without writing D3 code directly. The project is developed and maintained by Naver, the South Korean internet company. The name is a reference to the Billboard music charts. It is written in TypeScript and distributed via npm, so it fits into standard front-end JavaScript projects. There is also an official React wrapper package for projects using that framework. The library supports a wide range of chart types, including candlestick charts for financial data, area charts, gauge charts, and more, as shown in the chart-type overview image in the README. Charts are rendered as SVG, which means they scale cleanly at any screen size and can be styled with CSS. Documentation includes a full API reference, an interactive demo gallery, a migration guide for developers coming from the similar C3.js library, and a wiki with technical guides covering topics like generating chart images in a server-side Node.js environment and bundling for older browsers. The project follows semantic versioning and uses automated releases. It is open source and available on npm with a large number of weekly downloads.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

Using billboard.js, create a line chart that displays monthly sales data for 12 months with tooltips showing exact values on hover.

Prompt 2

Show me how to add a billboard.js bar chart to a React app using the official React wrapper package.

Prompt 3

How do I create a real-time updating chart with billboard.js that appends a new data point every second?

Prompt 4

Using billboard.js, build a candlestick chart that shows open, high, low, and close prices for a stock.

Prompt 5

Show me how to export a billboard.js chart as a PNG image in a Node.js server-side environment.

Frequently asked questions