Plotting in Julia

The main Julia plotting package is Plots.jl. This package imports most plot commands that you need. However, Plots.jl is really what is called a metapackage, which means it acts as an interface for other plotting libraries. The plotting library is decided by changing the backend.

The use of Plots.jl as a metapackage allows the user to change the plotting library used in the background without changing their code. Various types of backends and their different pros and cons can be found here. The main plotting backgrounds are GR and Plotly/PlotlyJS. The GR backend can be set simply by executing the command gr(). GR is the default backend and is very fast and is constantly improving. If interactivity is desired, the backends Plotly and PlotlyJS are a good choice instead. These backends are very similar, but are treated as different options and have slightly different pros and cons. For example, Plotly has no dependencies. The JavaScript it requires is bundled in the Plots.jl package. However, it only supports export to png file formats. PlotlyJS is the preferred option compared to Plotly, although the JS part, which stands for JSON, can reduce performance and this backend requires the user to first add the PlotlyJS.jl package to their environment. However, PlotlyJS supports more export formats such as EPS and PDF. To use Plotly execute the command plotly(). To use PlotlyJS execute the command plotlyjs() after adding PlotlyJS.jl to your environment.