Comparing FlexChart with MS Chart

This topic gives you a quick comparison between the FlexChart for WinForms and the standard MS Chart available for WinForms platform. For easy navigation, we have broadly divided these features into different categories. Click on the corresponding category in the right-hand pane or scroll down to know more about availability of a particular feature.

Chart Types

Chart Types	FlexChart	MS Chart
Area	✓	✓
StackedArea	✓	✓
StackedArea100	✓	✓
SplineArea	✓	✓
StackedSplineArea	✓
StackedSplineArea100	✓
StepArea	✓
Bar	✓	✓
StackedBar	✓	✓
StackedBar100	✓	✓
Bubble	✓	✓
CandleStick	✓	✓
Column	✓	✓
Combination	✓	✓
StackedColumn	✓	✓
StackedColumn100	✓	✓
Histogram	✓	✓
Ranged Histogram	✓	✓
Pareto	✓
Gantt	✓
Floating Bar	✓
Stock/ HighLowOpenClose	✓	✓
Line	✓	✓
LineStacked	✓
LineStacked100	✓
Spline	✓	✓
SplineStacked	✓
SplineStacked100	✓
LineSymbols	✓
StackedLineSymbols	✓
StackedLineSymbols100	✓
SplineSymbols	✓
SplineSymbolsStacked	✓
StackedSplineSymbols100	✓
Step	✓
StepSymbols	✓
Pie	✓	✓
Doughnut	✓	✓
PieExploded	✓	✓
DoughnutExploded	✓	✓
Point/ Scatter	✓	✓
Radar	✓	✓
Polar	✓	✓
Box-and-Whisker	✓	✓
ErrorBar	✓	✓
Funnel	✓	✓
Sunburst	✓
TreeMap	✓
Trendlines	✓
Waterfall	✓
2D	✓	✓
Heikin-Ashi	Available in Financial Chart for WinForms
LineBreak/ThreeLineBreak		✓
Renko		✓
Kagi		✓
ColumnVolume
EquiVolume
CandleVolume
ArmsCandleVolume
FastLine		✓
FastPoint		✓
StepLine		✓
RangeBar		✓
RangeColumn		✓
SplineRange		✓
Range		✓
PointAndFigure		✓
Pyramid		✓
3D		✓

Data Binding

Data Binding	FlexChart	MS Chart
MS SQL Server	✓	✓
OLEDB	✓	✓
ODBC	✓	✓
Object Data Source	✓	✓
Oracle	✓	✓
SharePoint Objects	✓	✓
Unbound Data		✓

Chart Features

Chart Features	FlexChart	MS Chart
Annotations	✓	✓
Axis binding	✓	✓
Customizable data labels	✓	✓
Customizable headers and footers	✓	✓

Data Manipulations

Data Manipulations	FlexChart	MS Chart
Aggregation	With custom code	✓
Sorting	With custom code	✓
TopN	With custom code	✓

Look & Feel

Look & Feel	FlexChart	MS Chart
Predefined Palettes	16	12
Custom Palette	✓	✓
Background Color	✓	✓
Background Image	✓	✓
Background Gradient/ HatchStyles		✓
Border and Border Styles		✓
Themes	16 themes	12 themes
DirectX Rendering, GDI+, SVG Rendering	✓

Chart Area

Chart Area	FlexChart	MS Chart
Header	✓	✓
Footer	✓
Multiple Headers		✓
Header/ Footer Borders	✓	✓
Header/ Footer Alignment	✓	✓
Rotate ChartArea	✓
Multiple Chart or Plot Areas	✓	✓
Toggle Visibility		✓
Coordinate Conversion Methods	✓	✓

Plot Area

Plot Area	FlexChart	MS Chart
Plot position configuration		✓
Plot margins	✓
Markers for PlotElements	Supported for all symbol and point chart types	✓
Markers Size	✓	✓
Markers as Images		✓
Markers: Border and Border styling		✓
Background Image/ Gradient/ HatchStyle for PlotElements		✓
Border and Border styling for Plot Elements		✓
Empty Points Styling		✓

Data Labels

Data Labels	FlexChart	MS Chart
Offset	✓
ConnectingLines	✓	✓
Borders and Border styling	✓	✓
Styling	✓	✓
Format String	✓	✓
Custom Content	✓
Manage Overlapping	✓
Positions for Cartesian charts	Bottom/ Center/ Left/ None/ Right/ Top	Only applies to bar charts. Outside/ Left/ Right/ Center
Positions for Pie charts	Center/ Inside/ Outside/ None	Inside/ Outside/ None

Axis

Axis	FlexChart	MS Chart
Axis: Primary X/Y	✓	✓
Axis: Secondary X/Y	✓	✓
Axis: Multiple Secondary X/Y	✓
Axis Label: Format strings	✓
Axis Label: Hide	✓	✓
Axis Label: styling	✓	✓
Axis Range (Min/Max) values	✓
Axis: Hide	✓	✓
Axis: Logarithmic	✓	✓
Axis: Reverse	✓	✓
Axis: Grouping	✓	✓
AxisLine Styling	✓	✓
Labels: Alignment	✓
Labels: Angle	✓	✓
Labels: Hide overlapping	✓
Major/ Minor GridLines	✓	✓
Major/ Minor TickMarks	✓	✓
Major/ Minor Units	✓	✓
TickMarks Length	✓
TickMarks Styling	✓	✓
Title and Title Styling	✓	✓
Configure Origin	Any value	Auto/ Min/ Max
TickMarks Position	Cross/ Inside/ Outside/ None	Cross/ Inside/ Outside/ None
Position	Top/ Bottom/ Left/ Right/ Auto/ None
ArrowHead styling		✓
Axis Label: Custom		✓
Axis Label: Staggered		✓
ScaleBreaks		✓
Multiple Axis	✓

Series

Series	FlexChart	MS Chart
Multiple Series	✓	✓
Data binding	✓	✓
Chart types at series level	✓	✓
Styling	✓	✓
Visibility	Plot/ Legend/ Both Plot and Legend/ Hidden	Plot/ Plot and Legend/ Hidden
Conditional Formatting	✓
Stacked charts	✓
Copy/ Merge/ Split Series Data		✓
Handle Empty/ Null Data Points	✓	✓

Legends

Legends	FlexChart	MS Chart
Title	✓	✓
Title Style	✓	✓
TextWrap	✓
Toggle Series Visibility from legend	✓
Orientation	Auto/ Vertical/ Horizontal	Vertical/ Horizontal/ Table
Position	Left/ Top/ Right/ Bottom	Left/ Top/ Right/ Bottom
Custom Legend Items		✓
Items Ordering		✓
Multiple Legends		✓
Custom Legend Icon	✓

Marker Symbols

Marker Symbols	FlexChart	MS Chart
Box	✓	✓
Dot	✓	✓
Diamond		✓
Triangle		✓
Cross		✓
Star4		✓
Star5		✓
Star6		✓
Star10		✓

User Interactions

User Interactions	FlexChart	MS Chart
Tooltips	✓	✓
Series selection	✓	✓
Point selection	✓	✓
Range Selection	✓
Zooming	✓	✓
Scrolling	✓	✓
Drilldown	With custom code	With custom code
Sunburst Drilldown	✓
TreeMap Drilldown	✓
Draggable Annotations		✓
Statistical Analysis using predefined formulas		✓
Financial Analysis using predefined Indicators and Overlays	✓	✓
DataPoint Filtering		✓
DataPoint Sorting		✓
Grouping		✓
LineMarkers	✓	✓
DataPoints Searching		✓
HitTest	✓	✓

Tooltips

Tooltips	FlexChart	MS Chart
Auto tooltips	✓
Custom content	✓	String type only
Show Delay	✓
Styling	✓
String type only		✓
Tooltips for different chart elements		✓

Financial Chart Features

Financial Chart Features	Financial Chart	MS Chart
Bollinger bands overlays	Available in Financial Chart for WinForms
Envelope overlay
Fibonacci tools
Indicators
MACD Indicator
Moving averages
Overlays
Stochastic Oscillator Indicator
Fibonacci tools

Pie Charts

Pie Charts	FlexChart	MS Chart
Exploded slices	✓	✓
Inner Radius	✓	✓
Starting Angle of first slice	✓	✓

Exporting, Importing & Printing

Exporting, Importing & Printing	FlexChart	MS Chart
Export to JPEG/ JPG	✓	✓
Export to PNG	✓	✓
Export to SVG	✓
Export to BMP		✓
Export to EMF		✓
Export to EMfDual		✓
Export to EMfPlus		✓
Export to GIF		✓
Export to TIFF		✓
Save/ Load to Binary files		✓
Save/ Load to memory streams		✓
Save/ Load to XML		✓
Export to Dataset		✓
Printing	✓	✓
Print Support	✓	✓

Footprint

Footprint	FlexChart	MS Chart
Assembly Size	330KB	904KB