These charts are used for visualizing the data distributions by plotting them against an x/y axis. These charts are also used for visualizing the time-series data to analyze trends. Bar and area charts are very useful for visualizing stacked data (that is, when sub aggregations are used).

Kibana 5.5 onward provides the option to dynamically switch the chart type; that is, the user can start off with a line chart but can change its type to either bar or area, thus allowing for the flexibility of choosing the right visualizations for analysis.