Here is an even simpler solution using base graphics and alpha-blending (which does not work on all graphics devices):

set.seed(42)
p1 <- hist(rnorm(500,4))                     # centered at 4
p2 <- hist(rnorm(500,6))                     # centered at 6
plot( p1, col=rgb(0,0,1,1/4), xlim=c(0,10))  # first histogram
plot( p2, col=rgb(1,0,0,1/4), xlim=c(0,10), add=T)  # second

The key is that the colours are semi-transparent.

Edit, more than two years later: As this just got an upvote, I figure I may as well add a visual of what the code produces as alpha-blending is so darn useful:

That image you linked to was for density curves, not histograms.

If you’ve been reading on ggplot then maybe the only thing you’re missing is combining your two data frames into one long one.

So, let’s start with something like what you have, two separate sets of data and combine them.

carrots <- data.frame(length = rnorm(100000, 6, 2))
cukes <- data.frame(length = rnorm(50000, 7, 2.5))

# Now, combine your two dataframes into one.  
# First make a new column in each that will be 
# a variable to identify where they came from later.
carrots$veg <- 'carrot'
cukes$veg <- 'cuke'

# and combine into your new data frame vegLengths
vegLengths <- rbind(carrots, cukes)

After that, which is unnecessary if your data is in long format already, you only need one line to make your plot.

ggplot(vegLengths, aes(length, fill = veg)) + geom_density(alpha = 0.2)

Now, if you really did want histograms the following will work. Note that you must change position from the default “stack” argument. You might miss that if you don’t really have an idea of what your data should look like. A higher alpha looks better there. Also note that I made it density histograms. It’s easy to remove the y = ..density.. to get it back to counts.

ggplot(vegLengths, aes(length, fill = veg)) + 
   geom_histogram(alpha = 0.5, aes(y = ..density..), position = 'identity')

On additional thing, I commented on Dirk’s question that all of the arguments could simply be in the hist command. I was asked how that could be done. What follows produces exactly Dirk’s figure.

set.seed(42)
hist(rnorm(500,4), col=rgb(0,0,1,1/4), xlim=c(0,10))
hist(rnorm(500,6), col=rgb(1,0,0,1/4), xlim=c(0,10), add = TRUE)

Here’s a function I wrote that uses pseudo-transparency to represent overlapping histograms

plotOverlappingHist <- function(a, b, colors=c("white","gray20","gray50"),
                                breaks=NULL, xlim=NULL, ylim=NULL){

  ahist=NULL
  bhist=NULL

  if(!(is.null(breaks))){
    ahist=hist(a,breaks=breaks,plot=F)
    bhist=hist(b,breaks=breaks,plot=F)
  } else {
    ahist=hist(a,plot=F)
    bhist=hist(b,plot=F)

    dist = ahist$breaks[2]-ahist$breaks[1]
    breaks = seq(min(ahist$breaks,bhist$breaks),max(ahist$breaks,bhist$breaks),dist)

    ahist=hist(a,breaks=breaks,plot=F)
    bhist=hist(b,breaks=breaks,plot=F)
  }

  if(is.null(xlim)){
    xlim = c(min(ahist$breaks,bhist$breaks),max(ahist$breaks,bhist$breaks))
  }

  if(is.null(ylim)){
    ylim = c(0,max(ahist$counts,bhist$counts))
  }

  overlap = ahist
  for(i in 1:length(overlap$counts)){
    if(ahist$counts[i] > 0 & bhist$counts[i] > 0){
      overlap$counts[i] = min(ahist$counts[i],bhist$counts[i])
    } else {
      overlap$counts[i] = 0
    }
  }

  plot(ahist, xlim=xlim, ylim=ylim, col=colors[1])
  plot(bhist, xlim=xlim, ylim=ylim, col=colors[2], add=T)
  plot(overlap, xlim=xlim, ylim=ylim, col=colors[3], add=T)
}

Here’s another way to do it using R’s support for transparent colors

a=rnorm(1000, 3, 1)
b=rnorm(1000, 6, 1)
hist(a, xlim=c(0,10), col="red")
hist(b, add=T, col=rgb(0, 1, 0, 0.5) )

The results end up looking something like this:

Already beautiful answers are there, but I thought of adding this. Looks good to me.
(Copied random numbers from @Dirk). library(scales) is needed`

set.seed(42)
hist(rnorm(500,4),xlim=c(0,10),col='skyblue',border=F)
hist(rnorm(500,6),add=T,col=scales::alpha('red',.5),border=F)

The result is…

Update: This overlapping function may also be useful to some.

hist0 <- function(...,col='skyblue',border=T) hist(...,col=col,border=border) 

I feel result from hist0 is prettier to look than hist

hist2 <- function(var1, var2,name1='',name2='',
              breaks = min(max(length(var1), length(var2)),20), 
              main0 = "", alpha0 = 0.5,grey=0,border=F,...) {    

library(scales)
  colh <- c(rgb(0, 1, 0, alpha0), rgb(1, 0, 0, alpha0))
  if(grey) colh <- c(alpha(grey(0.1,alpha0)), alpha(grey(0.9,alpha0)))

  max0 = max(var1, var2)
  min0 = min(var1, var2)

  den1_max <- hist(var1, breaks = breaks, plot = F)$density %>% max
  den2_max <- hist(var2, breaks = breaks, plot = F)$density %>% max
  den_max <- max(den2_max, den1_max)*1.2
  var1 %>% hist0(xlim = c(min0 , max0) , breaks = breaks,
                 freq = F, col = colh[1], ylim = c(0, den_max), main = main0,border=border,...)
  var2 %>% hist0(xlim = c(min0 , max0),  breaks = breaks,
                 freq = F, col = colh[2], ylim = c(0, den_max), add = T,border=border,...)
  legend(min0,den_max, legend = c(
    ifelse(nchar(name1)==0,substitute(var1) %>% deparse,name1),
    ifelse(nchar(name2)==0,substitute(var2) %>% deparse,name2),
    "Overlap"), fill = c('white','white', colh[1]), bty = "n", cex=1,ncol=3)

  legend(min0,den_max, legend = c(
    ifelse(nchar(name1)==0,substitute(var1) %>% deparse,name1),
    ifelse(nchar(name2)==0,substitute(var2) %>% deparse,name2),
    "Overlap"), fill = c(colh, colh[2]), bty = "n", cex=1,ncol=3) }

The result of

par(mar=c(3, 4, 3, 2) + 0.1) 
set.seed(100) 
hist2(rnorm(10000,2),rnorm(10000,3),breaks = 50)

is

Here’s the version like the ggplot2 one I gave only in base R. I copied some from @nullglob.

generate the data

carrots <- rnorm(100000,5,2)
cukes <- rnorm(50000,7,2.5)

You don’t need to put it into a data frame like with ggplot2. The drawback of this method is that you have to write out a lot more of the details of the plot. The advantage is that you have control over more details of the plot.

## calculate the density - don't plot yet
densCarrot <- density(carrots)
densCuke <- density(cukes)
## calculate the range of the graph
xlim <- range(densCuke$x,densCarrot$x)
ylim <- range(0,densCuke$y, densCarrot$y)
#pick the colours
carrotCol <- rgb(1,0,0,0.2)
cukeCol <- rgb(0,0,1,0.2)
## plot the carrots and set up most of the plot parameters
plot(densCarrot, xlim = xlim, ylim = ylim, xlab = 'Lengths',
     main = 'Distribution of carrots and cucumbers', 
     panel.first = grid())
#put our density plots in
polygon(densCarrot, density = -1, col = carrotCol)
polygon(densCuke, density = -1, col = cukeCol)
## add a legend in the corner
legend('topleft',c('Carrots','Cucumbers'),
       fill = c(carrotCol, cukeCol), bty = 'n',
       border = NA)

Here is an example of how you can do it in “classic” R graphics:

## generate some random data
carrotLengths <- rnorm(1000,15,5)
cucumberLengths <- rnorm(200,20,7)
## calculate the histograms - don't plot yet
histCarrot <- hist(carrotLengths,plot = FALSE)
histCucumber <- hist(cucumberLengths,plot = FALSE)
## calculate the range of the graph
xlim <- range(histCucumber$breaks,histCarrot$breaks)
ylim <- range(0,histCucumber$density,
              histCarrot$density)
## plot the first graph
plot(histCarrot,xlim = xlim, ylim = ylim,
     col = rgb(1,0,0,0.4),xlab = 'Lengths',
     freq = FALSE, ## relative, not absolute frequency
     main = 'Distribution of carrots and cucumbers')
## plot the second graph on top of this
opar <- par(new = FALSE)
plot(histCucumber,xlim = xlim, ylim = ylim,
     xaxt = 'n', yaxt = 'n', ## don't add axes
     col = rgb(0,0,1,0.4), add = TRUE,
     freq = FALSE) ## relative, not absolute frequency
## add a legend in the corner
legend('topleft',c('Carrots','Cucumbers'),
       fill = rgb(1:0,0,0:1,0.4), bty = 'n',
       border = NA)
par(opar)

The only issue with this is that it looks much better if the histogram breaks are aligned, which may have to be done manually (in the arguments passed to hist).

@Dirk Eddelbuettel: The basic idea is excellent but the code as shown can be improved. [Takes long to explain, hence a separate answer and not a comment.]

The hist() function by default draws plots, so you need to add the plot=FALSE option. Moreover, it is clearer to establish the plot area by a plot(0,0,type="n",...) call in which you can add the axis labels, plot title etc. Finally, I would like to mention that one could also use shading to distinguish between the two histograms. Here is the code:

set.seed(42)
p1 <- hist(rnorm(500,4),plot=FALSE)
p2 <- hist(rnorm(500,6),plot=FALSE)
plot(0,0,type="n",xlim=c(0,10),ylim=c(0,100),xlab="x",ylab="freq",main="Two histograms")
plot(p1,col="green",density=10,angle=135,add=TRUE)
plot(p2,col="blue",density=10,angle=45,add=TRUE)

And here is the result (a bit too wide because of RStudio 🙂 ):

Plotly’s R API might be useful for you. The graph below is here.

library(plotly)
#add username and key
p <- plotly(username="Username", key="API_KEY")
#generate data
x0 = rnorm(500)
x1 = rnorm(500)+1
#arrange your graph
data0 = list(x=x0,
         name = "Carrots",
         type='histogramx',
         opacity = 0.8)

data1 = list(x=x1,
         name = "Cukes",
         type='histogramx',
         opacity = 0.8)
#specify type as 'overlay'
layout <- list(barmode='overlay',
               plot_bgcolor = 'rgba(249,249,251,.85)')  
#format response, and use 'browseURL' to open graph tab in your browser.
response = p$plotly(data0, data1, kwargs=list(layout=layout))

url = response$url
filename = response$filename

browseURL(response$url)

Full disclosure: I’m on the team.

So many great answers but since I’ve just written a function (plotMultipleHistograms() in ‘basicPlotteR’ package) function to do this, I thought I would add another answer.

The advantage of this function is that it automatically sets appropriate X and Y axis limits and defines a common set of bins that it uses across all the distributions.

Here’s how to use it:

# Install the plotteR package
install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("JosephCrispell/basicPlotteR")
library(basicPlotteR)

# Set the seed
set.seed(254534)

# Create random samples from a normal distribution
distributions <- list(rnorm(500, mean=5, sd=0.5), 
                      rnorm(500, mean=8, sd=5), 
                      rnorm(500, mean=20, sd=2))

# Plot overlapping histograms
plotMultipleHistograms(distributions, nBins=20, 
                       colours=c(rgb(1,0,0, 0.5), rgb(0,0,1, 0.5), rgb(0,1,0, 0.5)), 
                       las=1, main="Samples from normal distribution", xlab="Value")

The plotMultipleHistograms() function can take any number of distributions, and all the general plotting parameters should work with it (for example: las, main, etc.).