I built a headless timeline/Gantt for React — would love some feedback

Ruslan Kriklivyy — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 14:45:50 +0000

I needed a scheduling view for a project of mine, wanted it to stay fast with a lot of items and to look exactly like the rest of the app, so I ended up building the component myself. It turned into a library.

Roadline — a headless, virtualized timeline/Gantt component for React. MIT, no runtime dependencies.

Drag a bar to move it, drag its edges to resize, scroll to pan, ctrl/cmd + wheel to zoom. An item with no duration renders as a milestone.

What's in it:

Virtualized on both axes, with items indexed by time, so large boards stay smooth
Headless — Sidebar, Header, Body, Grid, Dependencies, Marker are separate pieces you render or skip, and bars are render props. The default theme is an optional stylesheet built on CSS variables
Dependency arrows between tasks (FS, SS, FF, SF)
Nested items with roll-up bars, not just groups
Any IANA time zone per instance, DST-correct
Keyboard editing with screen reader announcements
Fully controlled: the hook owns the viewport, you own the data. onItemMove is a request — nothing moves until your array does
15 kB gzip for the React package, React 18 and 19, ESM + CJS, works in the Next.js App Router

Worth knowing before you try it: it's at 0.2.0, so pin the version — I may still change things. It targets modern browsers only (ResizeObserver, PointerEvent, Intl.DateTimeFormat.formatToParts, none polyfilled). And headless means a custom look costs you a bit more code than a batteries-included Gantt would.

Docs in the repo cover getting started, the API, recipes, theming, and there's a migration guide if you're coming from react-calendar-timeline.

I'd really appreciate feedback — especially on how the dragging and zooming feel in the demo, and whether the API shape makes sense to you. Happy to answer anything in the comments.

DEV Community: Ruslan Kriklivyy

I built a headless timeline/Gantt for React — would love some feedback