Donut Chart Tool

Note: What Is a Donut Chart?

The Basics

A donut chart is a variation of the pie chart that shows parts of a whole. It uses the same circular, slice-based logic, so each segment's arc length and area still represent a category's share of the total. The key difference is that the center of the circle is cut out, leaving a hollow ring, which is why it is also called a doughnut chart. That empty middle space is not wasted: it gives you room to display a headline number, a total, a label, or a short insight right inside the chart.

Common Use Cases

• Category share: showing the mix of sales, traffic, or inventory across product categories with the total in the center.
• Progress and completion: a ring that fills up as a percentage of a goal, such as a KPI target or an onboarding checklist.
• Survey and feedback breakdowns: the distribution of answers, with the number of respondents displayed in the middle.
• Portfolio and budget mixes: asset classes or spending categories with the overall sum highlighted at the core.
• Dashboard KPI cards: a compact gauge-style ring that combines a single metric with its category breakdown.
• Device and audience segmentation: shares of users by platform or plan type, with the total user count centered.

When to Use It vs Alternatives

Choose a donut chart when you want a parts-of-a-whole view AND a prominent centerpiece number. The hollow center makes it a favorite for dashboards, where designers can place the total, the average, or a call to action in the gap. Compared with a solid pie, the ring also feels lighter and less visually heavy in a dense dashboard layout.

Skip it when you need precise comparisons, because segment angles suffer from the same angle-judging problem as pie charts; a bar chart remains easier to read for exact values. For trends across time, a line or column chart is better. And when there are many small segments, consider a treemap or a bar chart instead of squeezing many thin arcs onto the ring.

How to Read and Build It Well

• Read the ring the same way you read a pie: compare arc lengths, with 50% covering half the ring and 25% covering a quarter.
• Use the center for the most valuable single number, such as the grand total or the completion percentage.
• Keep the number of segments small and order them from largest to smallest, starting at the top.
• Match segment colors to a clear legend or direct labels, and use consistent colors across charts in the same report.
• Guard the ring's thickness: too thin makes segments hard to distinguish, too thick turns it back into a pie.
• Animate the segments or highlight one segment when you want to focus attention on a specific category.

Fun Facts

• The donut chart is a relatively modern invention compared with the pie chart, which dates back to 1801.
• Its hollow center gives it an advantage over the pie: it can display totals, labels, or even mini sparklines inside the ring.
• Many dashboard tools and libraries default to donut charts for KPI rings because they pack a metric and a breakdown into one small space.
• Some studies suggest the donut's lack of a center makes the overall total less obvious, so the middle label restores that context.
• The name comes from the fried pastry with a hole in the middle, and both spellings, donut and doughnut, appear in chart documentation.
• Designers often prefer the donut to the pie for modern interfaces because the open center reduces visual clutter for the same data.
• You can stack multiple donut rings concentrically to compare two related breakdowns, a trick a single pie chart cannot do.