Ross ROSS = Recommend OSS · open-source software intelligence for agents

observablehq/plot

A concise API for exploratory data visualization implementing a layered grammar of graphics observed · 2026-08-28

github.com/observablehq/plot · homepage · HTML · ISC (permissive) observed · 2026-08-28

Health v2 · maintenance only

64/100

  • Activity 92
  • Release rhythm 8
  • Longevity 100
How is this computed?

round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-09-03. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.

  • gap_med: n/a
  • age_days: 2134
  • days_rel: 565
  • days_push: 51
  • n_releases_24m: 1

Full methodology

Adoption not part of the score

5360 stars · 236 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

Observable Plot is a free, open-source JavaScript library for visualizing tabular data, focused on accelerating exploratory data analysis. It offers a concise, expressive API built on a layered grammar of graphics with marks, scales, transforms, facets, and geographic projections, rendering to SVG on top of D3.

Use cases

  • quickly chart tabular data in JavaScript with concise code
  • build layered custom charts without chart-type constraints
  • compute summaries like binning, grouping, and rolling averages while plotting
  • create small multiples to compare data partitions
  • render geographic maps from GeoJSON with spherical projections
  • embed exploratory charts in notebooks, dashboards, or vanilla HTML pages

When to choose

  • you want fast, expressive exploratory data visualization in JavaScript
  • you prefer a grammar-of-graphics API over fixed chart types
  • you want built-in transforms (bin, group, stack, window) to reshape data during plotting
  • you need small multiples or geographic projections with minimal code
  • you are already comfortable with the D3 ecosystem

When to avoid

  • you need pixel-level imperative control over SVG or canvas rendering (use D3 directly)
  • you need a full dashboarding or BI application rather than a charting library
  • you require band-scale marks (bars, cells, ticks) with map projections, which are unsupported
  • your project is not JavaScript-based

Facets

library · maturity active

data-visualization charts data-visualization data-science web-development analytics browser cross-platform grammar-of-graphics d3 svg exploratory-data-analysis javascript marks scales small-multiples geographic-maps nodejs

10 sources

Member repositories

RepositoryRoleHealth v2
observablehq/plotmain64

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="observablehq/plot")

Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00 · Report a problem