{"slug": "matplotlib", "name": "Matplotlib", "category": "dev-libs", "category_name": "Libraries and frameworks", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 4, "warners": 0, "score": 2.84, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-11-30", "latest": "2026-08-01", "why": "numpy/scipy/matplotlib/pandas/plotly/polars/pyarrow/jupyter, which is essential to my work", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 0, "compare": 1, "warn": 0}, "spark": [1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "numpy/scipy/matplotlib/pandas/plotly/polars/pyarrow/jupyter, which is essential to my work", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://matplotlib.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Matplotlib", "matplotlib"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 786134800, "item_id": 49133425, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49133425", "by": "stared", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I had the best success with popular and versatile packages like matplotlib and ggplot2", "excerpt": "\"A Visualization Language for the AI Era\", as a tagline, sounds weird. I had the best success with popular and versatile packages like matplotlib and ggplot2 - even 1.5 ago (vide https://quesma.com/blog/which-chart-would-you-swipe-right/). Now, frankly, my go-to visualization package is React, sometimes with a pinch of D3.js (e.g. https://p.migdal.pl/tree-of-tree/).", "context": "", "use_case": "data visualization", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flint: A Visualization Language for the AI Era"}, {"id": 771744707, "item_id": 48234044, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48234044", "by": "ktpsns", "date": "2026-05-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the open source ecosystem is great and matlab would be my go-to tool if they would not exist", "excerpt": "Matlab inspired the scilab ecosystem, which is based on numpy, scipy, matplotlib, pandas. This was a major driver for the data science industry for a decade before AI kicked in and tensorflow, etc. was also built ontop of these libraries. While I personally try to avoid contemporary matlab at any cost, the open source ecosystem is great and matlab would be my go-to tool if they would not exist.", "context": "", "use_case": "plotting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Cleve Moler (Matlab, MathWorks) passed away on May 20, 2026"}, {"id": 737614424, "item_id": 46100901, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46100901", "by": "auxym", "date": "2025-11-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "numpy/scipy/matplotlib/pandas/plotly/polars/pyarrow/jupyter, which is essential to my work", "excerpt": "Scoop (https://scoop.sh/), a package manager for windows that is essential to make Windows usable for me. Sourcegit is my new favorite git client. Git in general, of course. Linux and also the people behind RT_PREEMPT, I am excited to see it merged into mainline this year. KDE has been my favorite DE for years and I use many of their apps too, such as Kate. Thanks to everyone contributing to the KDE project. The enti", "context": "", "use_case": "data science", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What open source projects are you grateful for?"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["data visualization", "agent-generated plots", "plotting", "data science"], "compared": [{"slug": "react", "name": "React", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "numpy", "name": "NumPy", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "pandas", "name": "pandas", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "scipy", "name": "SciPy", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49130604", "title": "Flint: A Visualization Language for the AI Era", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48596488", "title": "Plotnine", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48231319", "title": "Cleve Moler (Matlab, MathWorks) passed away on May 20, 2026", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46071771", "title": "Ask HN: What open source projects are you grateful for?", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {"compare": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 786134800, "item_id": 49133425, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49133425", "by": "stared", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I had the best success with popular and versatile packages like matplotlib and ggplot2", "excerpt": "\"A Visualization Language for the AI Era\", as a tagline, sounds weird. I had the best success with popular and versatile packages like matplotlib and ggplot2 - even 1.5 ago (vide https://quesma.com/blog/which-chart-would-you-swipe-right/). Now, frankly, my go-to visualization package is React, sometimes with a pinch of D3.js (e.g. https://p.migdal.pl/tree-of-tree/).", "context": "", "use_case": "data visualization", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flint: A Visualization Language for the AI Era"}, {"id": 778426400, "item_id": 48651650, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48651650", "by": "jablongo", "date": "2026-06-23", "stance": "compare", "quote": "difficult for me to see the difference between matplotlib, seaborn, and plotnine, when used in this way", "excerpt": "I use agents more and more for generating and refining plots, and its difficult for me to see the difference between matplotlib, seaborn, and plotnine, when used in this way. Agentic coding seems especially well suited to working with scientific figures, and that performance seems more or less agnostic to the underlying framework used (though they seem to prefer matplotlib, given the amount of training data for using", "context": "", "use_case": "agent-generated plots", "switched_from": "", "story": "Plotnine"}, {"id": 771744707, "item_id": 48234044, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48234044", "by": "ktpsns", "date": "2026-05-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the open source ecosystem is great and matlab would be my go-to tool if they would not exist", "excerpt": "Matlab inspired the scilab ecosystem, which is based on numpy, scipy, matplotlib, pandas. This was a major driver for the data science industry for a decade before AI kicked in and tensorflow, etc. was also built ontop of these libraries. While I personally try to avoid contemporary matlab at any cost, the open source ecosystem is great and matlab would be my go-to tool if they would not exist.", "context": "", "use_case": "plotting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Cleve Moler (Matlab, MathWorks) passed away on May 20, 2026"}, {"id": 737614424, "item_id": 46100901, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46100901", "by": "auxym", "date": "2025-11-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "numpy/scipy/matplotlib/pandas/plotly/polars/pyarrow/jupyter, which is essential to my work", "excerpt": "Scoop (https://scoop.sh/), a package manager for windows that is essential to make Windows usable for me. Sourcegit is my new favorite git client. Git in general, of course. Linux and also the people behind RT_PREEMPT, I am excited to see it merged into mainline this year. KDE has been my favorite DE for years and I use many of their apps too, such as Kate. Thanks to everyone contributing to the KDE project. The enti", "context": "", "use_case": "data science", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What open source projects are you grateful for?"}]}