AwesomeDataviz

R data visualization packages

ggplot2, interactive graphics and Shiny apps. 19 tools, ranked by GitHub stars and updated .

R's visualization ecosystem centers on ggplot2, an implementation of the grammar of graphics that most R users learn first. Interactive alternatives include plotly (R) and visNetwork, rgl covers 3D graphics, and Shiny turns analyses into interactive web applications.

By GitHub stars, the most popular R visualization packages here are ggplot2 (7K stars), Shiny (5.7K stars), and plotly (R) (2.7K stars). 8 of 19 had commits in the last 90 days.
1 ggplot2

A plotting system based on the grammar of graphics.

 7K 86 MIT
2 Shiny

Framework for creating interactive applications/visualisations

 5.7K 63 MIT
3 plotly (R)

Interactive charts (including adding interactivity to ggplot2 output), cartograms and simple network diagrams

 2.7K 19 MIT
4 patchwork Inactive

Composes multiple ggplot2 plots into a single figure.

 2.6K 0 MIT
5 ggstatsplot

Ggplot2-based plots with statistical test details included in the graphic.

 2.2K 84 MIT
6 rayshader

2D and 3D mapping and data visualization in R, including 3D renders of ggplot2 plots.

 2.2K 33 GPL-3.0
7 gt

Builds publication-quality display tables in R.

 2.2K 939 MIT
8 gganimate Inactive

Grammar of animated graphics that extends ggplot2.

 2K 0 MIT
9 esquisse Inactive

Drag-and-drop interface for building ggplot2 charts in RStudio or Shiny.

 1.9K 0 GPL-3.0
10 DiagrammeR

Graph and network diagrams in R, rendered with Graphviz and mermaid.

 1.7K 22 MIT
11 ComplexHeatmap

Highly customizable heatmaps for genomic and other matrix data (Bioconductor).

 1.6K 3 Other
12 ggrepel

Repels overlapping text labels away from each other in ggplot2 plots.

 1.3K 30 GPL-3.0
13 ggraph Inactive

Grammar of graphics for graphs and networks, extending ggplot2.

 1.1K 0 MIT
14 Leaflet for R Inactive

R interface to the Leaflet JavaScript library for interactive maps.

 841 0 MIT
15 ggvis Archived

A data visualization package with a syntax similar to ggplot2 which allows you to create rich interactive graphics.

 707 3 GPL-2.0
16 visNetwork Inactive

Interactive network visualisations

 563 0 MIT
17 rbokeh Archived

R Interface to Bokeh.

 311 0 MIT
18 rgl

3D Visualization Using OpenGL

 103 36 GPL-2.0
19 lattice

Trellis graphics for R

 74 16 GPL-2.0-or-later

Head-to-head comparisons

Related topics

Frequently asked questions

What is the most popular R visualization package?

By GitHub stars, ggplot2 is the most popular, with 7K stars, followed by Shiny (5.7K) and plotly (R) (2.7K).

Which R visualization packages are actively maintained?

11 of the 19 tools listed had commits in the last 12 months, including ggplot2, Shiny, plotly (R), ggstatsplot, and rayshader. Each tool page shows monthly commit activity.

Are these R visualization packages free and open source?

18 of the 19 tools listed use an OSI-approved open-source license; the others are source-available, free to use, or use a custom license, so check each tool page. The most common license here is MIT.

Missing a tool? Add it with a one-line pull request to the README.