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Canvas 2D and SVG handle modest series well. WebGPU is the right backend for large point counts, many synchronized charts, continuous appends, and GPU-side sampling or density binning.

Canvas, SVG, and WebGPU

Most browser chart libraries draw with Canvas 2D or SVG. That stays fine until draw and layout work compete with the rest of the UI. Common breakpoints: hundreds of thousands of points, many synchronized charts, continuous appends. Cost shows up as dropped frames and main-thread time.

WebGPU is a GPU API for the web. ChartGPU uses it for series drawing, optional compute paths (for example scatter density binning), and multi-chart setups that share a GPUDevice.

Feature scope

• WebGPU-only rendering (no WebGL/Canvas fallback) — Chrome/Edge 113+, Safari 18+
• Series: line, area, bar, scatter (including density), candlestick, OHLC, heatmap, band, error bars, impulse, pie, and 3D modalities
• Interaction: zoom, pan, crosshair, tooltips, annotations
• Streaming: appendData with optional FIFO maxPoints

Scatter density on the GPU

Density mode bins large point clouds on the device so structure remains visible when raw glyphs overplot. Adjust point count in the playground.

Related

Charting · Performance · Getting started