While gathering data — from sales metrics and customer feedback to website analytics and marketing outcomes — is routine for most companies, the challenge lies in linking different datasets, identifying trends, using them to make data-driven decisions, and communicating these findings to stakeholders.

Enter data visualization tools. These software platforms transform raw data into intuitive digestible visuals such as bar graphs, scatter plots, and maps.

The best tools seamlessly link data to insights and actionable plans, delivering tangible results; yet, choosing the right one can be tricky.

To help you make sense of the options, here’s our guide to the best data viz tools out there and what they can do.

What is data visualization and why is it useful?

Data visualization transforms large, complex data sets into visual forms. Whether you’re drawing a quick pie chart on a whiteboard, mapping out a project with a Gantt chart, or putting together a 3D animated presentation for stakeholders — you’re visualizing data.

Technically speaking, there are two distinct visualization types, and both play pivotal roles in modern business. Data visualization powers quick pattern identification to drive decision-making, while information visualization conveys abstract concepts via infographics, mind maps, and flow charts, ensuring effective communication with both internal and external audiences.

You can use data and information visualization to:

• Improve understanding. People process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. By presenting and formatting data through graphs, charts, and graphics, data visualization helps us digest and interpret information more quickly. 
• Notice patterns and trends in the data. Data visualization techniques, like scatter plots or heat maps, visually present data points, making patterns and outliers stand out. Visualizing data trends makes them immediately clear compared to rows of numbers in a spreadsheet.
• Make better decisions. Visual analytics allow decision-makers to understand intricate concepts and identify patterns. With visible trends and variations, we can quickly pinpoint areas of opportunity or concern.
• Track performance over time. By visually representing data of important company processes, like financial performance and marketing campaigns, over time, data visualizations allow for rapid identification of performance trends.
• Share information with different audiences. You can use data visualization tools to customize presentations, tailoring them for different audiences. This versatility means you can present the same dataset in numerous ways, catering to different degrees of understanding.
• Tell stories and create interactive experiences. Interactive visualizations on customer-facing assets like websites offer visitors an engaging experience, letting them explore details by zooming, hovering, or clicking. Well-crafted visualizations also tell compelling stories, guiding viewers through the data’s implications via analysis and interpretation.

10 fantastic data visualization options for businesses

Here are 10 of our favorite data and information visualization tools, from the most user-friendly to the most intricate. Your experience with these tools, however, will hinge on your team’s prior knowledge and expertise. 

For each tool, we provide a brief overview of core features and strengths, available plans, and a data visualization example.

If you’re torn between a few options, take advantage of the demo versions and free trials to explore how each tool’s interface and capabilities suit your team.

1. Infogram

Infogram offers tools to craft infographics, maps, charts, and animations with a vast selection of templates. You can also build interactive visualizations, dashboards (combinations of different visualizations on a single theme), and social media content.

Infogram’s ready-made templates and intuitive drag-and-drop user interface make it ideal for teams eager to start immediately, especially for those less familiar with design and data science. They also provide the option to upload a brand kit and create visuals with your unique branding elements, such as colors, logo, and fonts.

Free plan: Yes

Free trial or demo: Upon request 

Pricing: Free, Pro, Business, Team, and Enterprise plans 

2. Venngage

Venngage specializes in creating infographics, making it an optimal choice for enhancing internal communications and customer-focused content like newsletters, blog visuals, and social media posts. 

With an extensive library of over 7,500 customizable templates, Venngage streamlines the design process by structuring your infographics. There’s also an extensive variety of stock photos, illustrations, and icons you can combine and edit to craft compelling visuals customized to your needs.

While the free plan offers cost-saving advantages, it does come with restricted sharing capabilities, limited to HTML format. Investing in their premium plans broadens sharing and export options to formats like PNG, PowerPoint, and interactive PDF, catering to a wider range of presentation and distribution requirements.

Free plan: Yes 

Free trial or demo: Yes (14 days)

Pricing: Free, Premium, Business, and Enterprise plans

3. ChartBlocks

ChartBlocks lets you craft personalized charts and graphs without coding. You can import diverse data types, enabling hassle-free data pulling from multiple sources. Their intuitive import wizard also simplifies your decision-making, guiding you step by step to the visualization that best represents your data.

What sets ChartBlocks apart is its adaptability; you can embed its responsive charts and graphics directly onto websites or share them on social media without worrying about compatibility or display issues. Options to export outputs as editable vector graphics also enable fine-tuning visuals for print or digital mediums, enhancing consistency across all your platforms and communications.

Free plan: Yes

Free trial or demo: Yes 

Pricing: Free

4. Google Charts

Google Charts boasts an expansive gallery of popular visualization options, spanning from simple line charts and graphs to maps and complex hierarchical tree maps. While it’s a free platform, you’ll need a foundational understanding of JavaScript to maximize functionality and some CSS knowledge to tweak and personalize the content.

A notable advantage of Google Charts is its seamless integration with data sources like Google Sheets, Fusion Tables, Salesforce, and SQL databases. This flexibility ensures you can readily access and visualize data, no matter which source you import from. By providing outputs in HTML and SVG, Google Charts also guarantees broad compatibility and smooth web integration, enhancing the versatility of your visual content.

Pricing: Free 

5. Whatagraph

Whatagraph stands out as a marketing-focused visualization platform. It efficiently gathers data from various sources, automatically combining it to streamline the reporting process and trim time spent on weekly or monthly summaries. Its intuitive drag-and-drop interface further simplifies the creation process, though those well-versed in data analysis may desire more output flexibility.

Free plan: No 

Free trial or demo: 7-day trial period and 30-day money-back guarantee

Pricing: Professional, Premium, and Custom plans

6. Zoho Analytics

Zoho Analytics promotes real-time collaboration, allowing teams to quickly share and act on insights for immediate process optimization and cost management. Identifying inefficiencies or financial drains right away allows teams to proactively address them, leading to streamlined operations and better resource allocation. Their dynamic dashboards also present comprehensive business views, encompassing financials, operations, and customer behavior.

Additionally, its AI assistant forecasts future trends and weaves insights directly into strategic planning, allowing you to quickly capitalize on potential opportunities. Offering options for cloud-based or on-premises plans, Zoho caters to varied data privacy and infrastructure needs.

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Free plan: Yes 

Free trial or demo: Yes (15 days)

Pricing: Basic, Standard, Premium, and Enterprise plans

7. Databox

Databox provides a comprehensive view of your business operations, from finances to marketing campaigns, sales, and ongoing projects. By automatically calculating campaign returns on investment (ROIs), Databox empowers businesses to quickly assess and benchmark their marketing efforts’ effectiveness against competitors, fostering a competitive advantage.

With various dashboard templates specialized for sectors like software development, SaaS, and ecommerce, businesses can pick what resonates or craft custom dashboards around pivotal metrics such as conversion rates, new leads, and clickthrough rates. Seamless integration with over 100 major platforms like Google Analytics, QuickBooks, Stripe, and Campaign Monitor also ensures smooth data flows.

Databox offers a robust platform, and they ensure users have all the guidance they need to master it. A dedicated support team is available throughout onboarding, offering training to empower your in-house analysts. For teams seeking external expertise, the Premium plan provides direct access to a seasoned Databox business analyst.

Free plan: Yes 

Free trial or demo: Yes (15 days)

Pricing: Free, Starter, Professional, Growth, and Premium plans

8. Tableau

Tableau distills vast data volumes into captivating visual stories, making it simple for businesses to understand and present intricate insights. The platform’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface and natural language processing capabilities let users interact with an AI bot for data queries, eliminating complex coding. This accessibility broadens Tableau’s appeal, even to those without deep data analysis expertise. However, beginners might need some time — potentially a few months — to master the platform’s robust capabilities.

Free plan: Yes, the Tableau Public edition; all of the visualizations created in this version are public access. Students and teachers can sign up for one free year for some paid plans.

Free trial or demo: Yes (14 days)

Pricing: Viewer, Explorer, and Creator plans

9. datapine

datapine streamlines business intelligence by consolidating internal and external data into one accessible hub. With its dynamic dashboards featuring drill-downs, widgets, and a variety of filters, users can interactively explore their data to uncover insights. This platform effortlessly handles extensive data for large organizations and sends automated email data reports based on routines you establish. 

One of datapine’s main goals is democratizing data visualizations and fostering data-driven decision-making for everyone, so its interface is intuitive and user-friendly. However, being comfortable with data analysis will prove beneficial for advanced SQL queries or intricate outputs.

Like Zoho, datapine also includes predictive analytics, adjusting predictions to users’ preferred confidence interval.

Free plan: No

Free trial or demo: Yes (14 days)

Pricing: Basic, Professional, Premium, and Branding & Embedded plans

10. Sisense

Sisense delivers tailored business analytics, empowering companies to instantly process vast data volumes and visualize them on interactive dashboards specific for each firm. With AI analytics integrated into every application, teams can connect and collaborate on a secure platform in real-time.

The platform’s included natural language processing capabilities simplify data queries for beginners by accepting plain language. Instead of complex codes and queries, data science novices can enter questions or commands like “show me sales from last month” to receive the relevant data. However, the platform also doesn’t limit advanced users. Developers familiar with coding can use code-first solutions, directly programming or writing scripts for customized analytics and adapting the system to meet specific business needs. 

Unlike other platforms, Sisense allows you to merge various workflows into a single process, streamlining report generation for optimal flexibility and efficiency.

Free plan: No

Free trial or demo: Free live demo, 14-day free trial

Pricing: Quote upon request

Visualize data to improve your website’s performance

It’s hard to overstate the importance of data visualization for businesses. By transforming complex data into actionable insights, these tools pave the way for innovation and improvement.

Many companies conducting these analyses discover untapped potential in their website. If you need to give disappointing website analytics a lift, consider migrating your site to Webflow. With Webflow, you can create a visually stunning website that maximizes conversions and delivers an outstanding user experience. To find out more, head over to Webflow University.