These pie chart templates all answer the same question: how does a whole break down into its parts? Instead of comparing bar lengths or line positions, you're comparing slices of a circle, where each slice's angle and area stand for its share of the total. That makes a pie chart good at one specific job (showing that one category dominates, or that a handful of groups split something close to evenly) and not much else. The moment you need to compare this year against last year, a pie chart is the wrong tool and a bar chart is the right one.
The four templates here handle that job differently. A standard pie chart is the plain version (one ring, slices sized by value), best with three to five categories where one clearly stands out. A donut chart is the same idea with the center removed, softening the hardest part to judge (comparing angles) and leaving room for a total or label. Polar area charts hold every slice to the same angle and vary the radius instead: the shape for ordered categories, like months or age bands. Marimekko charts add a second dimension, width for one variable and height for another, so share and split show up in one chart.
Pie charts also have a well-earned reputation problem, worth being straight about: the eye compares angles and areas less accurately than it compares bar lengths, so two slices close in size, say 24% and 28%, are hard to rank at a glance. That gets worse past five or six slices, where a pie turns into a ring of similar thin wedges and a legend nobody wants to cross-reference. None of that means skip pie charts. It means use them for what they're good at (one dominant share, or a small, stable set of categories) and reach for a bar chart once the slice count climbs.