I love the minimalistic approach of ascii charts:

  Apples         xxxxxxxxxxxxx------- 100
  Bananas        xxxxxxxxxx----------  75
  Oranges        xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 150
  Grapes         xxx-----------------  25
  Pineapples     x-------------------  10
  Watermelons    xxxxxx--------------  50

- https://mrrartpro.com/

- and as Obsidian plugin: https://github.com/alincoop/obsidian-tinychart

I use matplotlib/seaborn/plotly-express to generate the figure and write a png. That way I can easily refine the figure once it goes from "trivial" to "complex": customize dpi, axis titles and ticks, latex in labels, annotating the line plots, etc. I'm picky about such details so often what should be easy becomes hard.

I’ve liked using https://draw.io

mermaidjs is my default go-to. it works super well with Claude 3.5 if you ask it to visualize <something> in mermaidjs syntax

I find Google sheets quick and easy.

Export to CSV and make a chart in Google Sheets.

for histograms: stacked '#'s in a tty

R + ggplot

Google sheets for quick barcharts.

Pandas + Seaborn for complex graphs with multiple data points.

Google charts

gnuplot

matplotlib