Not a .NET interface over a recycled ActiveX component. 

All error handling works through .NET exception classes. 

Object-oriented design created specifically for version 4 of the .NET framework.  (New in 4.3)

100% Unicode support. 

Can be used in C#, VB.NET, and Managed C++. 

Fast loading object with efficient memory usage. 

Documentation fully integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.

Video card hardware acceleration: Useful for real-time applications because it frees your CPU from having to draw the chart and transfers all rendering to the video card’s GPU. 

OpenGL rendering mode: Creates impressive lighting effects, smoothes chart elements using antialiasing and jittering, and provides unique fill effects. 

GDI+ rendering mode: Specially designed for displaying two-dimensional charts and often produces better-looking 2D charts than the OpenGL device. Surface charts are not supported. (New in 4.0) 

Rendering surface control: Support for bitmap and window rendering surfaces in both GDI+ and OpenGL rendering modes. The rendering surface can be changed at runtime. (New in 4.0) 

Advanced data binding: Allows data contained in the data series to be bound to DataAdapters and DataSets. There is also a built-in wizard allowing you to configure the DataBinding with ease. (New in 4.0) 

Built-in UI components: Grid and toolbar components help make the design of applications with Xceed Chart for WinForms more visual. The toolbar exposes the most frequently used commands of the chart control and also supports custom buttons. The grid is data-aware and supports true date-time editing, as well as fill effect, line style, and cursor type editing. 

Photoshop-like image effects can be applied on all chart elements rendering in 2D mode. This includes blur, bevel and emboss, lighting and glow filters, with many variations. (New in 4.0) 

HTML-like multiline texts: Text rendering supports multiline and HTML-like formatted texts with applied fill effect, border, shadow and image filters through XML tags and attributes. Support for bullets, superscript and subscript texts. (New in 4.0) 

Shadows can be applied on all chart elements rendered in 2D mode. The component supports several types of shadows including solid, linear blur, radial blur and gaussian blur shadows, with controlled fade area and color. (New in 4.0) 

New interactive tools: Data Pan (end-user can scroll through the chart data), Data Zoom (end-user can zoom in the chart data contained in a user-specified rectangle and zoom-out can also be performed; works in both 2D and 3D modes), and Data Cursor (helps determine the axis scale coordinates when clicking click on the chart or hovering over it; works in both 2D and 3D modes and supports many logic and visualization customizations). (New in 4.0) 

Chart Explorer: An interactive application that demonstrates how the different chart types function. The C# source code for each sample is displayed in a different tab page. 

Rendering images with transparent background: With the help of a single property, the chart can generate images with a transparent background. When the control is hosted in a Windows Forms application, this feature also properly modifies the control styles. (New in 4.0)

Improved user interface for all chart element editors. (New in 4.0) 

Over twenty different design-time editors: These allow users to create and modify charts quickly and easily, writing little or no code, for both Windows Forms and ASP.NET applications. State-of-the-art editors with full Visual Studio design-time support allow the creation of charts based on templates and the modification of their data and settings in just a few minutes. 

Editors available at runtime: All design-time editors are also available at runtime, including the Chart Wizard and the Chart Editor. 

Excel-like fill effect editors: You can not only specify any fill effect that you can specify in Excel, but you can also visually create any custom gradient with the built-in advanced gradient editor.

Full Windows Vista support (New in 4.1)

Wide variety of chart types: Fourteen major chart types are supported, such as the traditional bar, line, and pie series, but also high-low, mesh surface, and grid surface charts, and even a “shape” chart. Different chart types support multiple modes, meaning that literally dozens of different styles and types are available for developers. Many chart types support XY and XYZ scatter modes. 

Now supports XYZ scatter line charts, allowing you to draw lines in 3D and 2D, given the [x,y,z] coordinates for each line point. (New in 4.0) 

Empty data point support: All chart types support empty data points. 

Flexible integrated legend: Many predefined styles, positions, and data layout strategies are provided. Supports headers and footers. 

Built-in functions and formula support: The component has extensive custom formula support with 33 predefined functions, including commonly used financial indicators such as Relative Strength Index, MACD, Bollinger Bands, Average True Range, Momentum, Stochastic Oscillator, Directional Movement System, and Moving Averages. 

Faster 2D and 3D rendering. The rendering engine has been optimized for speed and memory usage. (New in 4.0) 

Several improvements have been made to the interactivity model of the component: All drag operations now support BeginDrag, EndDrag and DoDrag events. All drag operations now support Cancel (when the user presses Esc). All drag operations now support the keyboard. (New in 4.0) 

Improvements in the rendering engine: Complexity of sphere rendering can now be controlled, allowing for the display of 2D and 3D point charts in OpenGL with thousands of data points. (New in 4.0) 

Coordinate transformation support: The chart exposes several functions that convert view coordinates to chart model coordinates and vice versa. (New in 4.0) 

Advanced control over axis scaling and position: Static and dynamic axis positioning strategies and settings. Several predefined text layout schemes. Four scaling modes: DateTime, Numeric, Logarithmic, and Dimension scale. Paging with lots of customizations. 

Axis-labeling abilities: Stripes, constant lines as planes or simple lines, custom axis labels. 

Display of several chart types simultaneously: Advanced chart margin and fit strategy control. 

Display of several series simultaneously: Creating a combination chart has never been easier and more flexible. 

Display of multiple charts and legends in the component canvas. Charts can be described on one or more legends. Legends can describe multiple charts. 

Improved image borders with applied fill effect, border and shadow and controllable bevel effect. Image border rendering has been specially optimized for speed. (New in 4.0) 

Watermarks: Ideal for company logos and trademarks. Can be displayed on top of or behind the chart image with user-controlled transparency. 

Labels: Headers, footers, as well as custom positioned labels. 

Interactivity: Trackball, zoom, offset, mouse cursor change, mouse tooltips, and more. 

Drill-Down capabilities: Extensive drill down support. A wide variety of events are available. 

Advanced 3D-view control: 360-degree rotation, viewer rotation, orthogonal and perspective projections, offset, and zoom, as well as many predefined projection schemes. 

Advanced control over scene lighting: Several predefined lighting schemes. Up to 9 light sources. Spot and Directional light.