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Radar Chart Maker

Compare a few things across several measures at once, and see the shape of their strengths. Upload your spreadsheet, pick your axes, and publish an interactive radar chart you can embed anywhere — free.

Create a Radar Chart — freeSee the gallery

A live Radar Chart, built in PlotSet

Not a screenshot — a real interactive chart, embedded exactly as yours would be.

Example: Nutrient density of three plant foods

What is a Radar Chart?

A radar chart arranges several measures as spokes radiating from a centre and plots each item as a closed polygon across them. Its real output is a silhouette: readers do not measure individual spokes so much as recognise the overall shape, and see at a glance that one item is strong where another is weak. That makes it good for profile comparison and bad for reading values, and it is worth being deliberate about which of those you need.

When to use a Radar Chart

  • You are comparing profiles rather than totals

    Two or three products, teams or candidates scored across the same handful of criteria. The question is what each is good at, not which is biggest overall.

  • Your measures share a scale

    Scores out of ten, percentages, percentiles. When every spoke uses the same units and range, the polygon means something.

  • You have between five and eight measures

    Fewer than five and the shape is a triangle with no character; more than about eight and the spokes crowd until nothing is legible.

  • The audience will look at it more than once

    Radar charts reward familiarity. In a recurring dashboard where readers learn the expected shape, a deviation is spotted instantly.

When not to use a Radar Chart

  • Your measures use different units

    Revenue in millions next to a satisfaction score out of five makes a polygon whose area is meaningless. Normalise everything to a common scale first, or use a different chart.

  • You need to read or rank exact values

    Values on a radial axis are far harder to read than on a straight one. If precision matters, use a bar chart, or a dot plot with one row per measure.

  • You are plotting more than three items

    Overlapping polygons occlude each other quickly. Past three, use small multiples: one small radar per item, same axes, side by side.

  • Your measures have no natural order

    The chart's shape depends entirely on the order of the spokes, and reordering them produces a different silhouette from identical data. If no order is defensible, the shape is an artefact.

How to make a Radar Chart

From a spreadsheet to a published chart, step by step.

01

Start from the radar chart template

Open the PlotSet radar chart template. It loads with sample data bound so you can see the layout it expects before uploading your own.

02

Put one item per row and one measure per column

The first column holds the item name; each numeric column after it becomes one spoke. Check that the binding covers every column you added, since the template's default range may stop short of your last one.

03

Normalise your measures to a common scale

Convert everything to the same units and range before uploading, whether that is a percentage, a score out of a hundred, or a percentile. This is the step that decides whether the chart means anything.

04

Fix the spoke order and keep fills light

Choose a deliberate order for the axes and keep it. Use low fill opacity so overlapping polygons stay readable, and keep the outlines strong.

05

Publish, embed or export

Publish for a live interactive embed with hover tooltips, or export a PNG, SVG or PDF for a report or deck.

Start from the Radar Chart template with sample data already loaded, then swap in your own.

Open the template

The parts of a Radar Chart

Spoke (axis)
One measure, running from the centre outward. Every spoke should share the same scale and direction, so that further out always means more.
Polygon
One item, drawn by joining its value on each spoke. The silhouette is what the reader actually compares.
Rings (grid)
The concentric gridlines marking scale steps. They are the only reference a reader has for value, so labelling at least one ring matters.
Centre
The scale's minimum. Starting spokes at a value other than zero distorts the shape in a way that is very hard to spot.
Fill
The shaded interior of a polygon. Keep it translucent: solid fills hide whatever sits behind them.
Axis order
The sequence of spokes around the circle. It changes the shape without changing the data, so it should be chosen deliberately and then left alone.

Common Radar Chart mistakes

Mixing units across spokes

If one axis is dollars and another is a rating, the polygon's shape is an accident of scaling. Normalise before plotting.

Too many overlapping items

Four or more polygons on one radar become an unreadable web. Use small multiples instead.

Reordering the axes to flatter one item

Because shape depends on spoke order, rearranging the axes can make an item look more balanced than it is. Fix the order for a reason and keep it across every chart in the set.

Reading area as a total

Polygon area grows with the square of the values and depends on axis order, so it is not a meaningful sum. If you need an overall score, calculate it and show it as a number.

Radar Chart: common questions

Comparing a small number of items across several measures at once. Each item becomes a polygon, and the reader compares overall shapes to see where each one is strong or weak.

Make your Radar Chart now

Free to start with 300+ templates. No credit card required.

Create a Radar Chart — freeAll chart types