Data visualization is the representation of a large amount of complex quantitative and qualitative data and information through the use of common graphics, such as charts, plots, graphs, and even animation in a way that is easy to communicate and understand.
A data visualization tool has a number of business benefits, including better information visibility, easier trend analysis, and a data-driven culture. This tool allows companies to transform complex data into meaningful visual representations and quickly identify insights and trends, leading to more informed, data-driven decisions.
There are many data visualization tools available to business professionals. Let's explore the 10 best data visualization tools to use this year.
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| Best Data Visualization Tools |
Exploring 10 of the Best Data Visualization Tools for Business Professionals
Data visualization is an essential aspect of any business that deals with data and numbers. Organizing the data into easy-to-understand charts and graphs helps you make important decisions for your business and is one of the most critical uses for your data.
What Makes a Good Data Visualization Tool?
A good visualization tool should handle incredible amounts of data, be easy to learn and intuitive, and have several charts and visual graphs to choose from when selecting how to display your data. A number of visualization tools even have extensions, like the Qlik Sense extension, allowing you to use them in tandem with the capabilities of the web.
Some data visualization tools require some knowledge of coding and programming languages to get the most out of them. Still, they often offer more customization options and options than the more straightforward-to-use platforms.
10 Best Data Visualization Tools for 2024 and Beyond
1. Qlik Sense
Qlik Sense is Qlik View’s renamed data visualization and analytics software. Qlik Sense has the most extensive and advanced AI and machine learning of all other data visualization software, which means their predictions are far more accurate than others.
In addition, the analytic software Qlik Sense has some great dashboards and graphs available, and you can input large amounts of data and quickly design a great visualization. Plus, with the Qlik Sense extension, you can increase the visualization abilities of Qlik Sense with things like people charts or waterfall charts.
You can set alerts and automated reports, access the data from mobile devices, and create custom graphs you can embed anywhere. It’s a tremendous all-around data visualization software that’s easy to pick up and master, plus a cloud platform so you can access your data from anywhere and always have a backup available in an emergency.
If you want potent predictions and data analysis, you can’t do much better than Qlik Sense, with the best AI and machine learning on the market.
2. Google Charts
Google Charts remains one of the most popular data visualization tools on the market, and it’s well known for its easy interface, many options, and easy learning curve. And it’s hard to beat its price point, as it’s free and hard to pass up for businesses trying to save money.
You can input a large amount of data from various sources, create custom graphs and visualizations with a bit of basic coding, and handle all the control and dashboard layouts yourself.
There’s a variety of free online resources and resources provided by Google to help learn the software, so it’s an excellent option for businesses.
3. Tableau
Tableau is perfect for data visualization beginners. It has hundreds of input options and can handle all data, whether it's sales, database, or Big Data. You can customize graphs and dashboards to show the information you want. With a simple drag-and-drop interface, anyone can learn.
Tableau is one of the best data visualization tools because it covers all the bases a data visualization expert might need while remaining accessible to beginners. It's the perfect place to learn, but it can also deliver the tools and customization larger companies need.
4. Zoho Reports
Zoho Reports, known as Zoho Analytics, is one of the most powerful BI and analytic data visualization tools you can buy. You can input data from just about anywhere and create custom graphs, dashboards, and insights into your business data.
It can be tougher to learn, as it doesn’t have as many resources as other visualization platforms. Still, once you know how to use the software, you’ll have access to some of the best data visualization software available.
You can create effortless reports and time schedules and collaborate easily with others who understand the platform to create beautiful graphs and other visualizations.
5. Fusion Charts
Tons of companies prefer Fusion Charts for their flexibility. Their customer list includes names like Facebook, Google, Apple, IBM, and Intel. But it’s more challenging to learn as it’s a Javascript-based application, so you need to be well-versed in the programming language to get the most out of Fusion Charts.
However, the customization options are next level. You can create nearly any chart you’d like, using whatever data sets you want, so no matter how strange or significant your data set is, you’ll be able to graft it into a gorgeous and understandable chart.
6. Microsoft Power BI
Power BI (Business Intelligence) is Microsoft’s data visualization tool and has a lot of good. It has fantastic customization options for charts and graphs, great learning resources, incredible security, and the best compatibility with Microsoft products and databases.
Plus, you can start with a free account! However, the one weakness of Power BI is that it has trouble pulling data from multiple datasets and displaying them on the same graph. So, it’s not well suited for large or complicated businesses with tons of data to sort through.
7. Chart.js
If you’re looking for a free, open-source data visualization tool with much freedom, look no further than Chart.js. Chart.js is a Javascript library maintained by a community, with eight of the most popular chart types available for you to customize to your heart’s content.
If you know Javascript pretty well, you’ll likely find that Chart.js will fill your needs perfectly fine if you need the ability to create graphs to display on websites or generate reports.
However, this library lacks the analytic and automatic functions of other data visualization tools, so if you’re looking for something more powerful, this probably isn’t it. Also, you should be well-versed in both Javascript and data visualization design to create good-looking graphs.
8. Sisense
Sisense is a data analytics and visualization tool built for massive projects that include vast amounts of data. They have some of the best analytic tools on the market and top-quality cloud integrations, so you can constantly pull and display data in real-time.
Best of all, Sisense can be used with Javascript for better customization or with low-code or no-code tools so that everyone can use the platform with impressive customization options.
So, while Sisense doesn’t shine in everyday analytics, it’s the best for custom projects where you need to analyze a lot of data to find actionable insights and answers.
9. JupyteR
JupyteR is a next-level notebook interface where you can build graphs and other data visualizations and complicated calculations, nodes with different information, and various displayable information.
It’s an open-source, nonprofit project that aims at providing excellent notebook software to scientific communities. However, JupyteR also makes a great data visualization tool. You can use it with over forty programming languages, and the ability to create dashboards and collaborate with others is the cherry on top.
Unfortunately, you need to know one of the programming languages compatible with JupyteR to use the software. It doesn’t include analytic tools to help you create the best charts or make predictions.
10. Visual.ly
If you solely want great visuals that will wow your audience, it’s hard to beat Visual.ly. The special is creating stunning infographics, charts, and other visualizations that make other visualization tools look ugly in comparison.
The trade-off is that it’s not for businesses that want to organize their business data. They have no dashboards or analytic tools, and their charts are meant to be pretty, not give you essential business insights.
But maybe you want to create great content and infographics to display in blogs, on social media, or to use internally, and you need them to look great and be accurate and visually appealing. That’s where Visual.ly shines the most.
Conclusion
Visualization is a vital aspect of any business dealing with large chunks of data. As such, you want to find visualization tools that organize data into easy-to-digest charts and infographics.
It would also be wise to find tools that offer web extensions, like the Qlik Sense extension so that you can use the visualization tool with other tools on the web.