If you're building a React application with a serious amount of tabular data, eventually you'll have to answer an important question:
Should we build the table ourselves or use a dedicated data grid?
I've been looking at the major React data grid options and there are quite a few trade-offs.
Some popular choices include AG Grid, MUI X Data Grid, TanStack Table, Handsontable, PrimeReact, KendoReact, and Sencha Ext JS through ReExt.
The biggest thing I noticed is that "free" doesn't necessarily mean "cheaper."
A headless library such as TanStack Table gives developers a lot of flexibility, but your team may need to spend more time building and maintaining the UI layer.
On the other hand, commercial grids can provide advanced features out of the box, which may reduce development effort.
Things I'd evaluate before choosing one
- Dataset size
Don't benchmark with a few hundred rows if your production application will eventually handle tens or hundreds of thousands.
- Virtualization
Look at both row and column virtualization and test with your actual cell-rendering logic.
- Feature requirements
Sorting and filtering are table basics. Enterprise applications may also need grouping, aggregation, pivoting, editing, frozen columns, exports, and custom renderers.
- Accessibility
Keyboard navigation, ARIA semantics, focus management, and screen-reader support should be tested rather than assumed.
- Licensing
Understand exactly which features are included in the free/community version and which require commercial licensing.
- Total cost of ownership
Don't calculate only the license fee. Include implementation, customization, maintenance, upgrades, and developer time.
For me, the biggest takeaway is that choosing a data grid should start with the application's requirements rather than a popularity list.
What data grid are you using in your React project?
I'd be interested to hear what worked well — and what didn't.
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