I don't think it's correct to say Python is far behind in the viz space at all. It's just different.

I primarily use Altair within Python. ggplot is ahead of Altair in some respects, but behind in others.

For example, here is a chart which can be made in Altair:

https://altair-viz.github.io/gallery/seattle_weather_interac...

Note:

- You can brush over the date range to filter the bar chart

- You can click on weather type to filter the scatter chart

- It can be embedded in any webpage with these interactive elements in tact. Since the chart is represented by json and rendered by javascript, the spec also embeds the data within the chart itself, and allows the user to therefore change the chart however they want

You can even build something like gapminder: https://vega.github.io/vega-lite/examples/interactive_global...

More examples here: https://altair-viz.github.io/gallery/