Software packages to create graphs or charts from a database full of numbers?

Question

I have a device which generates a bunch of statistics once per second. All of the statistics are stored in a PostgreSQL database on a Ubuntu server.

I'd like to create a web interface to prompt the user for a time range and which values to graph. I'm also thinking this kind of thing is common when people have databases full of numbers, so it must already exist. Problem is I don't know what terms to google to find relevant software packages. So far, the only 2 I've found are php5-rrd, and Carbon/Graphite.

The PHP5-RRD solution seems simple enough, though I'm worried I'll be needlessly re-inventing the wheel. Can anyone recommend other similar software packages that can help generate a bunch of "live" charts or graphs with a web front-end?

Answer 1

Instead of storing things in a heavy PostgreSQL database, I did eventually change my app to use RRD (round robin database). Lots of ways to easily get and store information in RRDs.

# on Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install rrdtool

Once I had my RRD files, it was trivial to use the usual RRD tools combined with PHP and the free Google Charts to generate the many different graphs I needed. Google Charts by itself is an amazing project worth highlighting: https://developers.google.com/chart/

Answer 2

Depending on your needs, you can try:

• BIRT
• Saiku
• Shiny (RStudio)

Or you can google charting library or try something from this article

Answer 3

Try this d3.js tutorial. Depending on your needs it might solve your problem with a way simpler solution than whatever you were thinking.

Edit: if you want to learn the very basics of d3.js, I recommend Scott Murray's tutorials.