Gnuplot
Shares rank 15 of 19 charting libraries by recommenders
Free plotting program people use for plots, charts and graphs, often from Emacs or the terminal. The most common caveat is that its license is criticized as conflicting with the GPL.
Free plotting program people use for plots, charts and graphs, often from Emacs or the terminal. The most common caveat is that its license is criticized as conflicting with the GPL.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 80%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Makes plots, charts and graphs
“Install Gnuplot too for plots/charts/graphs”
Comment from 28 May 2026 in “We are Poles, so, of course, we print in Latin” “charts made from Gnuplot can be 100% safe”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “Document-borne AI worms can self-propagate through Copilot for Word” “Gnuplot would help you in that case”
Comment from 21 Dec 2025 in “Ireland’s Diarmuid Early wins world Microsoft Excel title” Works with Emacs and terminals
“Install emacs with gnuplot and run M-x calc.”
Comment from 2 Aug 2026 in “But can your calculator run Linux?” “gnuplot, img2sixel as an "image-cat"”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “State of Terminal Emulators in 2025: The Errant Champions” “Gnu plot dumb terminal mode?”
Comment from 25 Apr 2026 in “"Plain text has been around for decades and it's here to stay." – Unsung”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
License conflicts with the GPL
“please, fix that hell of license”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “A vector graphics workstation from the 70s” “is not GNU at all; worse, it conflicts with the GPL”
Comment from 1 May 2026 in “CopyFail Was Not Disclosed to Distros” Not GNU; holds GNU back
“Purged are gnuplot dependencies with a custom and actual GNU bound 3d plotting software.”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “Emacs-libgterm: Terminal emulator for Emacs using libghostty-vt” “Depending on non-GNU, external tools it's holding GNU and Elisp back.”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “Emacs-libgterm: Terminal emulator for Emacs using libghostty-vt”
Other charting libraries people recommend
The four most recommended other charting libraries, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 19 charting libraries, rankedWhat people said
15 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Install emacs with gnuplot and run M-x calc.”
“charts made from Gnuplot can be 100% safe”
“Install Gnuplot too for plots/charts/graphs”
“is not GNU at all; worse, it conflicts with the GPL”
“Gnu plot dumb terminal mode?”
“Gnuplot is already GNU-adjacent and works fine.”
“Depending on non-GNU, external tools it's holding GNU and Elisp back.”
“Purged are gnuplot dependencies with a custom and actual GNU bound 3d plotting software.”
“Not great, but worked well to get to the next step of that project”
“spent an unreasonable number of years wrangling gnuplot and matplotlib to make figures look right”
“Gnuplot would help you in that case”
“it's a little obnoxious but it's weird enough that I like it”
“please, fix that hell of license”
“It was all Perl 5 and gnuplot.”
“gnuplot, img2sixel as an "image-cat"”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.