Apache ECharts vs Heimdall
| Tagline | Powerful, declarative charting library for embedding interactive visualizations | Elegant PHP application dashboard to organise all your web applications |
| Category | BI & Dashboards | BI & Dashboards |
| Replaces | Tableau, Power BI | Tableau, Looker, Power BI |
| GitHub stars | 67k | 9.3k |
| Language | TypeScript | PHP |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Easy | 2/5 Easy |
| Deploy options | Manual Docker | Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 7 days ago | 23 days ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Apache ECharts
- Library only; no built-in query layer or data connector UI
- Requires custom development to build a full dashboard application
- No user management or saved-dashboard persistence out of the box
Heimdall
- No business analytics, charts, or data visualization
- No native multi-user support with role-based access
- Enhanced App integrations limited to a pre-defined list with no custom plugin API
- No alerting or on-call escalation for service outages
Bottom line
Both are a similar lift to self-host; choose Apache ECharts for the larger community and ecosystem. Apache ECharts has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Apache ECharts
Powerful, declarative charting library for embedding interactive visualizations