Which is better Makie or Graphs?

Specific Domains Visualization
1

I’m trying to visually see how some functions converge and use it for some other visualizations of functions or 3d simulations and I’m wondering which one is better, or should I learn both? Initially I choose Makie, but don’t have a graphics card. Is it worth using WGLMakie or should I use Graphs, what is your recommendation?
Thanks in advance.

2

With Graphs.jl and GraphMakie.jl you could do some plots…

https://juliagraphs.org/Graphs.jl/dev/plotting/

1 Like
3

By now, GLMakie should also work on most platforms without GPU, so it should be possible to still set it up…
And if not, CairoMakie & WGLMakie should work pretty well :wink:

4

I think you’re misunderstanding what Graphs.jl is – The name “Graph” is referring to a mathematical graph, which is a set of points connected by edges. This is not the same as a plot; the packages aren’t interchangeable.

4 Likes
5

If you’d like an alternative to Makie, Plots.jl and Gadfly.jl are both pretty good. The main differences between these three will be:

  1. Plots.jl is the most mature, and is also versatile (as it can use many different backends).
  2. Gadfly.jl uses ggplot-style syntax, where you create graphs by composing different parts. This is very flexible. That being said, Gadfly is being updated a lot less than the other two packages these days.
  3. Makie.jl has the most bells and whistles (and IMO the best-looking graphs, but obviously that’s subjective). It also has the AlgebraOfGraphics expansion, which lets you extend Makie with ggplot-style syntax – of these, AoG hews closest to what ggplot looks like.

I personally would suggest Makie.jl, as it’s the one improving the fastest these days, but they’re all good.

6

Sorry, you are right. I forgot to mention Plots.jl. I wanted to ask if it is better to learn those two or Makie as Makie can do both things, with a bit of help from GraphsMakie. Also, my general usage for the project now is mostly around mathematical graphs.
Thank you for pointing that out.

1 Like
7

Ahh, makes sense – I had no idea Makie could do graphs.

8

I think it uses, Graphs to do graphs. so it just adds some functionality.
How long do you think does it take to learn Graphs.jl, Makie.jl and Plots.jl?