ScottPlot is a free, open-source interactive plotting library for .NET, written in C# and released under the MIT license, aimed at .NET developers who need to render and explore large datasets as charts inside their own applications.
What it is
ScottPlot is a plotting and charting library for the .NET ecosystem, listed in this registry under Data & Analytics / Business Intelligence & Reporting. It is written in C# and distributed as the NuGet package ScottPlot. The library covers the common chart types a data-driven application needs — line plots, bar charts, pie graphs, and scatter plots among them — and the ScottPlot Cookbook shows how each is created with a few lines of code. The project was created by Scott W Harden and has been extended by contributions from the open-source community, and it is provided under the permissive MIT license, free to modify and use for any purpose.
The concrete problem it solves is the cost of getting interactive plots into a .NET application without leaving the .NET toolchain. A developer working in Windows Forms, WPF, Blazor, Avalonia, or Uno Platform typically faces a different rendering story in each framework. ScottPlot targets all of them from the same library, so the plotting layer does not have to be rebuilt per UI stack, and the same code path handles large datasets interactively rather than as a static image.
Key capabilities
- Renders line plots, bar charts, pie graphs, and scatter plots with a few lines of code, as documented in the ScottPlot Cookbook.
- Displays large datasets with interactive behavior in GUI environments, demonstrated in the ScottPlot Demo.
- Targets Windows Forms, WPF, Console, Uno Platform, Blazor, Avalonia, Eto, and Notebooks, with quickstart guides for each.
- Ships as the NuGet package
ScottPlot, so installation follows the standard .NET package workflow.
- Supports Notebook environments, allowing plots to be produced in interactive .NET notebook sessions.
- Publishes documentation, the Cookbook, and the Demo at ScottPlot.net alongside the source repository.
- Is licensed under MIT, which permits modification and use for any purpose.
Who uses it and how
- Desktop .NET developers building Windows Forms or WPF applications that need embedded interactive charts rather than exported images.
- Web developers using Blazor who want plotting inside a .NET web front end without a separate JavaScript charting stack.
- Cross-platform teams using Avalonia or Uno Platform, where the same plotting code must run across multiple target operating systems.
- Analysts and researchers working in Notebooks, who use the library interactively during exploratory data work.
- Console and tooling authors who need to produce plots from non-GUI .NET programs.
Getting started
Install the ScottPlot package from NuGet, then follow the quickstart guide for the target framework — Windows Forms, WPF, Console, Uno Platform, Blazor, Avalonia, Eto, or Notebook — at ScottPlot.net.
How it compares
No comparable tools are named in the facts provided for this entry, and no list of paid products it replaces is given. On the evidence available, ScottPlot stands alone in this registry as a .NET-native interactive plotting library.
When to use it — and when not to
Choose ScottPlot when the application is already .NET and the charts must be interactive and embedded in that application. Be aware that the project is open source but currently not open to anonymous code contributions, so outside developers cannot simply submit patches; engagement runs through the Discord server and the issues section instead. The repository also carries 242 open issues, and the README is deliberately brief, pointing readers to ScottPlot.net for the real documentation.
