Seaborn isn't usable without matplotlib, nor does it aim to be. It gives you simple high-level calls and as soon as you need to tweak your plot you're back to m

Seaborn isn't usable without matplotlib, nor does it aim to be. It gives you simple high-level calls and as soon as you need to tweak your plot you're back to matplotlib. (Similar to the pandas plotting shown in the article actually.) Bokeh is nice. And has made huge improvements over the past year or two. But it still doesn't directly compete with matplotlib because it's more focused on interactive plots.