Data Grid Web Components Market Research: perfect data table - who are you?

Yuliia NikitinaTechnical Writer
Published:
What should you consider when searching for your project's perfect data table web component? This article gives an overview of all crucial criteria for data analytics and developers, explains the state of the market, and presents a list of products to explore before diving into one specific option  
Web components are a great tool that makes life easier for many developers. You can build your web page by combining different libraries, tools, and components - like blocks in Minecraft. You don’t spend days developing a calendar in your application. You use an already existing one and spend your free time adding a cool feature like synchronizing the calendar with your user's Google Calendar. Less effort - much more outcome. 

Nowadays, the web component market is full of advanced components such as grids, charts, maps, calendars, etc., which makes web development so much easier and enjoyable.


One of the most popular and in-demand web components is a data grid. It’s a universal tool that allows you to visualize your data and process, analyze, and operate it. It’s used in many spheres for different purposes, such as business dashboards, financial dashboards, reports and KPIs, customer orders, election data, and others. A well-developed and thought-out grid can be a real-time-saver both for developers and end-users.


Personal experience

As part of a software development company that has worked with data visualization for 15 years, we got some requests from our clients about the visualization of big datasets. As datasets become bigger every year, the bar is rising even higher.

Companies try to track everything they can and produce tons of data: sales details, client data, financial results, subcontractors' information, etc. All this information should be transformed and visualized properly to become insightful and understandable for further analysis. 

Except for trivial factors such as price, features list, and comfortable UI design, nowadays, performance comes to first plan. You need to use the best tools to be the best in your field. The speed of your software here also matters a lot as you want to ensure your users get started quickly, effectively analyze, and the web application works correctly with any kind and amount of data.


One of the most popular grid solutions to work with data is Microsoft Excel. It has great functionality and works amazingly with data. But unfortunately, we can't use it if we need a visualization tool for web reporting because you can’t integrate it into your app. 


And if we are speaking about a large dataset, Excel has a rock-solid limitation: according to the official website, the maximum data on the worksheet is 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns. Also, loading such a volume of data takes a lot of time in Excel. 


So I've got interested if there are products on the market that can fulfill all the requirements. The perfect data table should easily handle big data sets fast, show high performance throughout the analysis process, and be embeddable into a web application.


So I decided to conduct market research with a focus precisely on handling big data sets. I was especially interested in how fast grid components can work with big data volumes and not just generally be able to handle them. Because there is a stereotype that working with big data takes a lot of time. The bigger your data, the more time you’ll wait for it to process and for any further manipulation with it. I decided to explore what solutions are currently leading the market and what they have to offer. 


Research insights

Overall I've researched 61 different grid components. I'd tried out their demos, looked at their product overviews, list of available features, and whether their promise met their performance. And here is the result of my research representing the state of the market.  


Price


54% of all components are open-source and made by small companies or even by one developer. As to commercial products, prices range from $95 to $1299, depending on features, performance, and support options. Grids are really affordable components, and if your requirements are not so high and wide, you can easily use some free products. Though note usually free products are updated very rarely. 


Big data


The key point of my research was the possibility of working with large data sets, so I've looked for any mentions of the amount of data, limits, and available functions. 




Among 61 components on the market, only 28% of them wrote something about working with big datasets. Important note that each company has its own definition of big data. 

There is no strict measure of what big data is, and every company has its own understanding. Some companies mention big data sets for 10,000 records, while others use them for a million records. Half of these companies have a 1 million record feature mentioned. I guess, despite the lack of a clear measure of big data, we can agree that really big data is at least a million. So basically, only 9 grid components can be considered as a grid for big data. 


Features


Nowadays, companies are caring to offer a product that will be convenient both for the developers (ease of implementation, detailed documentation, quality support) and the end user (wide list of customization options, convenient UI, accessibility, availability of all necessary features). Solutions currently available on the market usually provide similar features, which we can divide into the following categories:




Basic features are expected from every grid as default. The other 3 categories can be named as advanced features: to stand out, companies offer features that can be helpful for developers and end users, such as infinite scrolling, million cells, pivot table, advanced filtering, styling, integration with third-party libraries, or some embedded components. 

Frameworks


Among front-end technologies, there are different frameworks available, so you can choose what is best for your project. And there is no surprise Angular and React remain trendy. React is the leader known for its flexibility, versatility, and fast rendering capabilities. In the list of the researched components, there are a few that are React-only.




Open-Source and Free data grid tools 


Based on the previously stated conclusions, I formed a list of my favorite components. So let’s start with free grids that you can try for visualization of big datasets. 

Tanstack

TanStack Table is one of the most popular React libraries. The developer has full control over markup and styles, and it works with TS/JS, React, React Native, Solid, Svelte, and Vue. Small in size, though, can display massive data sets using a very small API surface.


  • Most popular on GitHub
  • Designed for zero design
  • Customization and feature-rich

Licensing: MIT


Addazzle

Addazzle React data grid is a feature-rich and customizable component on GitHub. You are able to fork and extend the functionality though it is already very impressive for a free tool. 


  • There are no examples of big data sets
  • Сell editors like autocomplete, checkbox, and dropdown editors, complete with keyboard navigation, are available

Licensing: MIT


New but promising 

The next three grids are relatively new on the market but already appear as promising. So take a closer look at them, as you might find them just right for you.


DataTableDev

DataTableDev is a library for the instant display of big data volumes that can be a part of any web application. All main manipulations with data like scrolling, searching or filtering are entirely smooth and intuitive, with immediate results and no delays at all. All your data is right in front of you, ready to be discovered, with immediate access to every record.


  • Still in development
  • The demo works flawlessly (allows you to test the approach on a 1.6 GB file with 11 million)

The product is currently in development, but its beta version has already demonstrated highly promising results. Therefore, I strongly suggest keeping a keen eye on it once it is released for production.


Revogrid

The RevoGrid is a powerful virtual data grid smart sheet with advanced customization. It can represent a massive amount of data as an "excel-like" table or list.  The library works in any major framework or with no framework at all, which is very convenient.


  • Looks good, and draws quickly, but there is no example with big datasets.  
  • Provides inbuilt range edit or per cell edit, keyboard support, and custom edit and renders features

Licensing: MIT


Generic UI Grid

Generic UI is a free, lightweight data management tool. It focuses on easy implementation and comfortable usage. Right now works with Angular but React version is coming soon.


  • Can present huge sets of data up to 1 000 000 rows, has a 1M demo
  • It has a cell editing feature

Licensing: MIT


ReactDataGrid

Enterprise-grade React Data Grid developed specifically for React.


  • Great design
  • No blinking
  • Pivot Function
  • Live pagination 

Licensing: MIT for community edition features; EULA - enterprise edition features from 299$.


Commercial data grid tools


Devextreme

The DevExtreme Data Grid is a part of the Devextreme UI Suite. It has integrated server-side support for all necessary features and handles large datasets. Works with Angular, React, Vue, jQuery, and Ionic.


  • Demo with 1 million records ( you can check for yourself how the component work with big data sets)
  • Smooth scrolling (though sometimes skips frames)
  • No white spaces
  • A variety of other components that can be integrated
  • 30 days free trial 
  • Additional: great YouTube channel where you can find a lot of tutorials and useful information about the tool.

Licence: Non-Commercial, Non-Competitive EULA
A commercial from $499


Bryntum

The Bryntum Grid is a high-performance table web component. It can be embedded in Angular, React, and Vue or plain vanilla JS apps.


  • 1 million records demo
  • Works flawlessly
  • A lot of different features
  • Wide customization options
  • Integration with ExsJS, SalesForce

Licensing: from 680$


Good grids with no big data support

 

The following grids could have shown better performance with big data. But if you need a good grid and your dataset is not so massive, you can consider one of them.


Syncfusion

Syncfusion DataGrid is a feature-rich control for displaying data in a tabular format. It has a wide range of functionalities and works with Angular, React, Vue, Blazor, and Flutter.

  • Good scrolling speed, native scrolling is used
  • No flickering and white screens
  • Great pack of features
  • Fast support
  • Wide customization options.

Licensing from 395$/month 


Wijmo/GrapeCity

A .NET FlexGrid for WinForms that renders and displays data sets pretty fast. Includes only the essential vital features and offers everything else through an extensibility model. Supports Angular, React, and Vue.


  • Pivot, Charts, and Sparklines are available

Licensing: Flexgrid is a part of Wijmo Enterprise - a collection of JavaScript UI components. Price from  699$


Ag-Grid

AG Grid is a fully-featured and highly customizable JavaScript data grid. It has no third-party dependencies and integrates with Angular, React, Vur, and Solid frameworks.


  • It also has pivots, charts, sparklines 
  • It has a real-time update function

Licensing: MIT for non-commercial usage ( limited features)
A commercial from $750


Conclusion

A data grid is a powerful tool that can be handy for web developers and beneficial for end-users. The market of data grid components is active and growing but not filled with perfect solutions. So we can expect that the relevance of such products will only increase. After all, the amount of data collected by companies is constantly growing, and we need more and more powerful tools. On the other hand, fast decision-making is what becomes crucial in modern business. So investing your money in a data analysis tool that will be fast and performative will power up your team, improve the decision-making process and just be an efficient way to become better in your field.


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