# Vega-Altair vs Vega-Lite

## Key differences

- Vega-Altair has 1.9× as many GitHub stars as Vega-Lite (10.5K vs 5.5K).
- Vega-Altair had more development activity over the last 12 months: 153 commits vs 120.
- Both are released under the BSD-3-Clause license.
- Vega-Altair is written primarily in Python, Vega-Lite in TypeScript.

| | Vega-Altair | Vega-Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Description | Declarative statistical visualizations, based on Vega-Lite. | Is a high-level grammar of interactive graphics. It provides a concise JSON syntax for rapidly generating visualizations to support analysis. |
| GitHub stars | 10,491 | 5,502 |
| Commits (12 months) | 153 | 120 |
| Contributors | 183 | 205 |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | Python | TypeScript |
| Status | Active | Active |
| Install | `pip install altair` | `npm install vega-lite` |

Source: https://awesomedataviz.com/compare/altair-vs-vega-lite/ · Data updated 2026-10-04 · Content: CC BY 4.0, Awesome Dataviz (https://awesomedataviz.com).