Stacked area centered on a flowing baseline. Organic, expressive.
A free, animated streamgraph you can read here or embed on any website, from Scrollchart.
Streamgraph
A streamgraph is a stacked area chart where the stack is centered on a wiggled baseline rather than anchored to zero. Each series forms a smooth organic band that rises and falls symmetrically around the center of the chart. The width of a band at any point in time represents that series' value; narrowing means decline, widening means growth. The overall silhouette resembles a flowing river, which is where the name originates.
Lee Byron and Martin Wattenberg formalized the layout algorithm and the term "streamgraph" in their 2008 paper "Stacked Graphs: Geometry and Aesthetics" (IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics). Their canonical example mapped the rise and fall of film genres using box-office revenue from 1986 to 2008.
The X-axis is time; the Y-axis has no numeric scale. To read a series' value at a given time, estimate the vertical thickness of its band at that point and compare it against other bands or against its own thickness at other points. There is no absolute numeric readout, so streamgraphs are best suited to communicating relative and qualitative patterns: which category dominated a given era, when a category peaked, and how the composition shifted overall.
Inline labels placed inside each band at its widest point identify series without a separate legend. The deliberate absence of gridlines and axis numbers reinforces that precision is not the goal; the flow and proportion of the whole is the story.
Editorial pages where a quick visual replaces a wall of text
Content-marketing posts that need a clean, branded illustration
Source & accuracy
This streamgraph is an editorial illustration built to represent the concept accurately. Where it shows figures, they are typical or representative values chosen to make the relationship clear, not a single underlying dataset. The diagram and its explainer are reviewed and maintained centrally, and updated over time as understanding improves.
Aesthetic stacked areas with flowing baselines
A streamgraph is a variant of stacked area that centers the data around a fluctuating baseline rather than anchoring it at zero. The overall flow resembles a stream with organic curves, hence the name. This visual centering distributes series more evenly across the vertical space, preventing bottom series from being squeezed into thin slivers. The organic, flowing appearance makes streamgraphs popular for dashboards and infographics where aesthetics matter alongside function.
When flowing centers become misleading
The centered baseline introduces a cost: it obscures absolute magnitudes. A series that appears tall in a streamgraph might be smaller in absolute terms than it appears. Viewers cannot reliably read start and end values of individual streams because the baseline is not fixed. Streamgraphs prioritize beauty and overall pattern over precision, making them suitable for exploration and presentation but less suited to analytical work requiring exact values.
Effective uses and design guidelines
Streamgraphs work best with 5-10 categories and smooth time-series data (monthly or quarterly, not daily fluctuations). Sorting categories by their total contribution often improves legibility. Color gradients should run from light to dark or use a perceptually ordered palette to aid discrimination. Streamgraphs are ideal for news graphics on topics like music streaming trends, migration flows, or website traffic composition but less ideal for precise financial reporting.
Embed this diagram
Add this animated streamgraph to your own site. Copy one line of HTML, or use the embed builder for theme and sizing options.
Reference
What this is
A free, embeddable, animated streamgraph for any website.
Who uses it
Data journalists, Researchers & academics, Content marketers, News organizations.
How to embed
Copy one line of HTML. No signup. No watermark. Works in WordPress, Webflow, Ghost, Substack, plain HTML.
File size
iframe embed, ~80 KB gzipped (loads on demand, does not block your page paint).
License
Free forever. Editorial explainer text included; updated centrally over time.
Copy the universal HTML snippet, the WordPress shortcode, or an iframe fallback -
see the WordPress plugin page for details. Any format keeps
the same Core Web Vitals profile and the same explainer text.
By embedding, you acknowledge the diagram and explainer text are served from scrollchart.com and may be updated from time to time to reflect new research or to link to relevant sources within the explainer.
Frequently asked questions
Where can I get a free animated "Streamgraph" for my website?
Scrollchart provides "Streamgraph" as a free, embeddable animated diagram you can add to any website with one line of HTML. No signup is required and there is no watermark. The diagram and its explainer text are served from scrollchart.com, so the embed stays current without any maintenance on your end.
How do I embed a streamgraph in a blog post or article?
Paste the one-line HTML snippet from the Scrollchart diagram page into your post editor. It works in WordPress, Webflow, Ghost, and plain HTML with no plugin required. The animated diagram and its explainer text load from scrollchart.com and render directly in your page DOM.