Recently working on the reporting side of a large application, we’re building here at We Love, a fast, free charting solution was needed for early prototypes. There are many solutions around but when we happened upon the charting API from Google we hit the jackpot. A simple URL is all that is required; the URL below:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p4&chd=t:80,40,10&chs=275x100&chl=Cats|Dogs|Iguanas&chco=ff3333|ff6666|ff9999
produces this chart:
and there are libraries all over for many scripting languages, such as PHP, Python, Rails, and many more.
It’s extremely fast – so fast it shouldn’t be free – and there are many options to play with. You can check them out here at Google Chart API.
If you use them in any cool projects post the link below!