React + Enterprise Data Grids: Build Everything Yourself or Use a Component Library?

One question that comes up when building complex React data grid applications is whether to develop advanced UI components internally or use an existing component framework.

Data grids are a good example.

A basic table doesn't require much. But an enterprise grid may need:

Virtual scrolling
Lazy loading
Large dataset handling
Inline editing
Custom cell rendering
Drag and drop
Responsive layouts
Data binding
Advanced state management

I've been looking at ReExt, which allows developers to use Ext JS components within React applications.

The approach is interesting because React can remain the primary application framework while specialized components handle areas such as data grids, forms, charts, and navigation.

Performance considerations

For large datasets, rendering every row at once isn't practical.

Virtual scrolling and lazy loading allow applications to load and render data as needed, reducing the amount of work the browser has to perform.

But implementation details still matter. Complex cell renderers, frequent updates, unnecessary event handlers, and inefficient state management can all affect performance.

A few practices I'd follow

Keep components modular.
Smaller reusable components are easier to maintain and update.

Use lazy loading.
Don't load everything upfront when the application doesn't need it immediately.

Use a structured data store.
Keeping grid data organized makes updates and state management easier.

Be careful with event handling.
Only attach listeners that are actually required, and clean them up when they're no longer needed.

Test with realistic data.
A grid that performs well with 100 rows might behave very differently with thousands of records.

For enterprise applications, the interesting question isn't simply "Can React build this?"

It usually can.

The more useful question is:

How much functionality should the development team build and maintain themselves?

That's where reusable enterprise components can become interesting.

Has anyone here used ReExt, Ext JS, AG Grid, or another enterprise-focused React grid in production?