Altair: Declarative Charts With Python

There’s a moment many data analysts know well: you have a new dataset and a clear question, and you open a notebook only to find yourself writing boilerplate axis and figure setup before you’ve even looked at the data. Matplotlib gives you fine-grained control, but that control comes with a cost. Altair takes a completely different approach to data visualization in Python.

Instead of scripting every visual detail, you describe what your data means. This includes specifying which column goes on which axis, what should be colored, and what should be interactive. Altair then generates the visualization.

If you’re wondering whether it’s worth adding another visualization library to your toolkit, here’s how Altair and Matplotlib compare: