Xplore — Grapher
The OWID-grapher based framework powering our interactive observatories — explore any indicator across time, countries and chart types, without code.
Create an Explorer →Any organisation can also combine their own data with the public database already accessible on the demonstration platform (see the available public database).
Organisations working with international data typically end up building custom exploration tools from scratch — expensive, slow to maintain, and rarely up to the interactivity standards users expect. For international indicator data specifically, the OWID grapher is simply the best visualisation engine available: purpose-built for country-level time series, geographic coverage and multi-chart exploration. Xplore makes it deployable for any organisation, on any dataset, in minutes — and adds statistical analysis, interactive presentations and educational tools that no comparable solution offers out of the box.
| Criterion | Classic tools (Python, D3, Datawrapper…) |
Our World in Data |
OWID + Xplore |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data type Geographic visualisations |
Generic ✗ Complex |
International ✓ |
International ✓ |
| Deployment & cost | ✗ Months of development | ✗ Challenging to deploy | ✓ A few minutes |
| Simplicity, interactivity, ergonomics & animations | ✗ Static or complex | ✓ State of the art | ✓ State of the art |
| Figure + data export - Science compatible | Partial | ✓ | ✓ |
| Integrated/unified framework Exploration capability |
✗ Couple indicators per charts ✗ Limited |
✓ Unified framework with hundreds of indicators ✓ Simple + Unlimited exploration |
|
| Connected to thousands of public KPIs | OWID database | ✓ 10,000+ (OWID, WB, IMF, OECD, WHO, Google Data Commons…) | |
| Statistical analysis tools directly coupled to the explorer | ✓ One click, no code, shareable as URL | ||
| Interactive presentations & educational tools | ✓ Built-in, no additional tool required |
Each visualisation type has the appropriate analytical options — with no additional configuration.
| Option | Tables | Maps | Lines | Ranking | Differential | XY / Scatter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Differential | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Log scale | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Percentage normalisation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Individual trajectories | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Temporal animation (Play) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Country / region selection | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Data + Figure export | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Xplore deploys a modified version of OWID-grapher, the open source infrastructure developed by Our World in Data — the engine that has driven their site to 100 million annual visits.