Should I use SVG or canvas for the charts on my website?

marco · 2026-06-12T11:33:25+01:00

I'm creating a new site and want to use rgraph for it but am not sure whether to use canvas or svg. is there any difference between the tw? Marco

About

RGraph is a JavaScript charts library based on HTML5 SVG and canvas. RGraph is mature (over 18 years old) and has a wealth of features making it an ideal choice to use for showing charts on your website.

Version 7.20

Version 7.20 (released in June 2026) is the latest version of RGraph and the major change in this version is an update to the default values of properties making for better looking charts without having to set any properties. Read more about this and other changes in the changelog.

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Download

Get the latest version of RGraph (version 7.20, 9th June 2026) from the download page. You can read the changelog here. There's also older versions available, minified files and links to cdnjs.com hosted libraries.

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Latest forum posts

These are the latest support forum posts that have been posted or updated.

12th June, Marco
Should I use SVG or canvas for the charts on my website?

9th June, Richard
New version of RGraph: version 7.20

3rd June, Patrick
Question about installing RGraph

1st June, Ouja
How do I add a click event to a bar in my Bar chart?

8th May, Anthony Kuma
Does the SVG Line chart have outofbounds functionality?

Support forum »

License

RGraph can be used for free under the GPL or if that doesn't suit your situation there's an inexpensive (£129) commercial license available.

Hi,

Well, that's an age-old question! These days, there's little difference between the two. Technically, canvas is faster - but you're unlikely to notice any difference.

SVG is probably quicker to get something up and running if you're drawing from scratch - but using RGraph, again, you won't see any difference.

In terms of RGraph, it was originally a canvas-only library, and as such, the canvas side of things is a bit more mature, though both SVG and canvas have a wide range of features, and neither is missing anything significant.

The SVG charts are a tiny bit sharper (in terms of antialiasing). Before version 7 of RGraph, this was a more significant difference. But now that the canvas charts have better antialiasing, both look very good.

So it really just comes down to personal preference. If you plan on doing any custom drawing after your chart has been rendered, I'd probably lean towards canvas because I think that it's a friendlier drawing API.

HTH

Richard

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