Plot with python (matplotlib, seaborn)

Do you want to make beautiful charts with Python? You can with matplotlib or seaborn.

Matplotlib is a plotting library for the Python programming language. It lets you create charts like a bar chart, line chart and many other basic charts.

Seaborn is a Python data visualization library based on matplotlib.It provides a high-level interface for drawing attractive and informative statistical graphics.

You should know the basics of Python before trying to make plots.

Example

So is it complicated to make a plot? It depends. Creating a plot can be as simple as 3 lines of code:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

plt.bar([1,2,3,4,5], [10,20,30,40,50])
plt.show()

where it's x-values and y-values in the bar parameters. This shows a simple bar chart:

Now that is with matplotlib alone. What about seaborn?

With seaborn you can change the colors, add a grid etc. There are also many other plots. You'll see seaborn looks a lot more modern:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns

sns.set(style="darkgrid")

plt.bar([1,2,3,4,5], [10,20,30,40,50], color="m")
plt.title("seaborn")
plt.show()

You can learn both modules, and because seaborn is based on matplotlib, there isn't much of a difference in learning curve.

Related links:

• Seaborn with Python tutorial
• Matplotlib Data visualization course
• Matplotlib tutorial