To install Plotly's Python package, use the package manager pip inside your terminal.

$ pip install plotly

or

$ sudo pip install plotly

If you don't have pip installed on your machine, click here for pip's installation instructions.

Plotly's Python package is updated frequently! To upgrade, run:

$ pip install plotly --upgrade

Plotly for Python can be configured to render locally inside Jupyter (IPython) notebooks, locally inside your web browser, or remotely in your online Plotly account.
Remote hosting on Plotly is free for public use. For private use, view our paid plans.

Offline Use

Standalone HTML

Offline mode will save an HTML file locally and open it inside your web browser.

import plotly
print plotly.__version__  # version >1.9.4 required
from plotly.graph_objs import Scatter, Layout
plotly.offline.plot({
"data": [
    Scatter(x=[1, 2, 3, 4], y=[4, 1, 3, 7])
],
"layout": Layout(
    title="hello world"
)
})

Learn more by calling help:

import plotly
help(plotly.offline.plot)

Inside Jupyter/IPython Notebooks

import plotly
print plotly.__version__            # version 1.9.4 required
plotly.offline.init_notebook_mode() # run at the start of every notebook
plotly.offline.iplot({
"data": [{
    "x": [1, 2, 3],
    "y": [4, 2, 5]
}],
"layout": {
    "title": "hello world"
}
})

Learn more about offline mode

Hosting on Plotly

Plotly provides a web-service for hosting graphs. Create a free account to get started. Graphs are saved inside your online Plotly account and you control the privacy. Public hosting is free, for private hosting, check out our paid plans.

In the terminal, copy and paste the following to install the Plotly library and set your user credentials.

$ pip install plotly
$ python -c "import plotly; plotly.tools.set_credentials_file(username='DemoAccount', api_key='lr1c37zw81')"

You'll need to replace 'DemoAccount' and 'lr1c37zw81' with your Plotly username and API key.

Find my API key.

To host your graph in your plotly account:

import plotly.plotly as py      # Every function in this module will communicate with an external plotly server
py.plot({                      # use `py.iplot` inside the ipython notebook
"data": [{
    "x": [1, 2, 3],
    "y": [4, 2, 5]
}],
"layout": {
    "title": "hello world"
}
}, filename='hello world',      # name of the file as saved in your plotly account
sharing='public')            # 'public' | 'private' | 'secret': Learn more: https://plot.ly/python/privacy

Special Instructions for Plotly On-Premise users

Your API key for account on the public cloud will be different than the API key in Plotly On-Premise. Visit https://plotly.your-company.com/settings/api/ to find your Plotly On-Premise API key. Remember to replace "your-company.com" with the URL of your Plotly On-Premise server.

If your company has a Plotly On-Premise server, change the Python API endpoint so that it points to your company's Plotly server instead of Plotly's cloud.

In your Terminal, enter:

$ python -c "import plotly; plotly.tools.set_config_file(plotly_domain='https://plotly.your-company.com',
plotly_streaming_domain='stream-plotly.your-company.com', plotly_api_domain='https://api-plotly.your-company.com')"
        

Make sure to replace "your-company.com" with the URL of your Plotly On-Premise server. Questions? Email support@plot.ly

The initialization step places a special .plotly/.credentials file in your home directory. Your ~/.plotly/.credentials file should look something like this:

{
    "username": "DemoAccount",
    "stream_ids": ["ylosqsyet5", "h2ct8btk1s", "oxz4fm883b"],
    "api_key": "lr1c37zw81"
}
            

You can change the contents of this file manually or as described in the Initialization section.