React Data Grid - High Performance Excel-like Grid

Why React Data Grid?

React Data Grid (RDG) targets a specific niche: applications that need to look and feel like a spreadsheet. While other libraries focus on displaying data (tables), RDG focuses on interacting with data. It provides a familiar environment for users accustomed to Excel or Google Sheets.

Excel-Grade Editing: Supports inline editing, copy/paste from Excel, and keyboard navigation (arrow keys, Tab, Enter) right out of the box.
Virtualization Standard: It only renders the rows and columns currently visible in the viewport, allowing it to handle datasets with 100,000+ rows smoothly.
Complex Layouts: Supports frozen columns (sticky columns), resizable headers, and draggable column reordering.
Tree & Grouping: Built-in support for tree-view (hierarchical data) and row grouping, essential for financial or analytical dashboards.
Modern Stack: Rewritten in recent years to leverage modern React patterns (Hooks) and strict TypeScript definitions.

Code Snippet

RDG is a component, not a hook, so you pass props directly to it. This snippet shows a basic setup with sorting and a custom cell formatter.

import DataGrid from 'react-data-grid';
import 'react-data-grid/lib/styles.css';

const columns = [
  { key: 'id', name: 'ID', width: 80, frozen: true },
  { key: 'title', name: 'Title', resizable: true, sortable: true },
  { 
    key: 'status', 
    name: 'Status', 
    // Custom cell renderer
    renderCell: (props) => (
      <span className={props.row.status === 'Active' ? 'text-green-500' : 'text-red-500'}>
        {props.row.status}
      </span>
    ) 
  }
];

const rows = [
  { id: 1, title: 'Project Alpha', status: 'Active' },
  { id: 2, title: 'Project Beta', status: 'Paused' },
  // ... imagine 1000 more rows
];

export default function App() {
  return (
    <div style={{ height: 500, width: '100%' }}>
      <DataGrid 
        columns={columns} 
        rows={rows}
        defaultColumnOptions={{
          sortable: true,
          resizable: true
        }}
      />
    </div>
  );
}

Unlike headless libraries, you must import the CSS file (react-data-grid/lib/styles.css) for the grid to function correctly.

Pros and Cons

No library is perfect; understanding the trade-offs is key to selecting the right tool.

Pros

Interaction Ready: You get keyboard navigation, cell selection, and editing editors without writing any logic.
Performance: The virtualization engine is robust and handles large datasets significantly better than standard HTML tables.
Feature Density: Includes difficult-to-build features like "Frozen Columns" and "Column Spanning" by default.

Cons

Opinionated Styling: It generates a specific DOM structure with calculated inline styles for positioning. Overriding this to match a custom design system (like Material UI) can be fighting against the library.
Documentation: While better than it used to be, the documentation can be sparse on complex edge cases compared to commercial rivals like AG Grid.
CSS Dependency: It requires its own stylesheet, which might conflict if you have strict CSS-in-JS requirements or a utility-first approach.

Comparison with Other Grid Libraries

The table below outlines the positioning differences between React Data Grid and its competitors:

Library	Design Philosophy	Best For	Pain Points
React Data Grid	Spreadsheet Component Ready-to-use grid with Excel UX.	Data Entry Apps Financial apps, admin panels needing bulk editing.	Styling Harder to skin than headless options.
TanStack Table	Headless Logic Hooks for state, you build the UI.	Custom UI When you need total control over the markup (e.g., using Tailwind).	No Built-ins You must build keyboard nav and virtualization yourself.
AG Grid	The Kitchen Sink Commercial-grade, massive feature set.	Enterprise Banks and traders needing pivoting, charting, and sidebar tools.	Complexity Huge bundle size and steep learning curve.

Verdict: When to Adopt

Choose React Data Grid when you need an Excel-like experience (editing, frozen columns, virtualization) but don't have the budget or need for the massive complexity of AG Grid Enterprise. It is the "sweet spot" between building it yourself (TanStack Table) and buying a heavy commercial license.

TL;DR