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  1. Stackups
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  3. UI Components
  4. Javascript UI Libraries
  5. Handsontable vs React

Handsontable vs React

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

React
React
Stacks182.6K
Followers147.0K
Votes4.1K
GitHub Stars240.3K
Forks49.7K
Handsontable
Handsontable
Stacks58
Followers77
Votes6
GitHub Stars21.6K
Forks3.2K

Handsontable vs React: What are the differences?

## Key Differences between Handsontable and React

Handsontable is a JavaScript/HTML5 data grid component while React is a popular JavaScript library for building user interfaces.
1. **Architecture**: Handsontable is a data grid component specifically designed for displaying and editing tabular data, while React is a library for building complex UI components using a virtual DOM.
2. **Ecosystem**: Handsontable is a standalone component that can be integrated into any web application, whereas React is part of a larger ecosystem with additional libraries like React Native for building mobile applications.
3. **State Management**: Handsontable does not have built-in state management capabilities, whereas React provides tools like hooks and context API for managing state within components.
4. **Rendering Performance**: Handsontable focuses on rendering tabular data efficiently with features like lazy loading and virtual scrolling, whereas React's virtual DOM helps optimize rendering performance by reducing actual DOM manipulations.
5. **Component Hierarchy**: Handsontable does not rely on a component hierarchy like React's tree-like structure, as it primarily deals with rendering tabular data in a grid format.
6. **Learning Curve**: Handsontable may have a steeper learning curve due to its specific focus on grid functionality, while React's component-based architecture is more flexible and easier for developers familiar with JavaScript.

In summary, Handsontable is a specialized data grid component, while React is a versatile library for building user interfaces with a component-based architecture. 

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Advice on React, Handsontable

Cyrus
Cyrus

Aug 15, 2019

Needs adviceonVue.jsVue.jsReactReact

I find using Vue.js to be easier (more concise / less boilerplate) and more intuitive than writing React. However, there are a lot more readily available React components that I can just plug into my projects. I'm debating whether to use Vue.js or React for an upcoming project that I'm going to use to help teach a friend how to build an interactive frontend. Which would you recommend I use?

884k views884k
Comments
Cyrus
Cyrus

Aug 15, 2019

Needs advice

Simple datepickers are cumbersome. For such a simple data input, I feel like it takes far too much effort. Ideally, the native input[type="date"] would just work like it does on FF and Chrome, but Safari and Edge don't handle it properly. So I'm left either having a diverging experience based on the browser or I need to choose a library to implement a datepicker since users aren't good at inputing formatted strings.

For React alone there are tons of examples to use https://reactjsexample.com/tag/date/. And then of course there's the bootstrap datepicker (https://bootstrap-datepicker.readthedocs.io/en/latest/), jQueryUI calendar picker, https://github.com/flatpickr/flatpickr, and many more.

How do you recommend going about handling date and time inputs? And then there's always moment.js, but I've observed some users getting stuck when presented with a blank text field. I'm curious to hear what's worked well for people...

401k views401k
Comments
Malek
Malek

Web developer at Quicktext

Mar 28, 2020

Decided

The project is a web gadget previously made using vanilla script and JQuery, It is a part of the "Quicktext" platform and offers an in-app live & customizable messaging widget. We made that remake with React eco-system and Typescript and we're so far happy with results. We gained tons of TS features, React scaling & re-usabilities capabilities and much more!

What do you think?

244k views244k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

React
React
Handsontable
Handsontable

Lots of people use React as the V in MVC. Since React makes no assumptions about the rest of your technology stack, it's easy to try it out on a small feature in an existing project.

Handsontable is a minimalist approach to Excel-like table editor (datagrid/data grid) in HTML & JavaScript.

Declarative; Component-based; Learn once, write anywhere
Cell renderers;Custom HTML;Scroll bars & Column stretch;└ Scroll window;Conditional formatting;Pre-populate new rows;Highlight current row/col;Column sorting;Column & row resize;Column & row move;Fixed rows/columns;Pagination;Merge cells;Horizontal & vertical align;Custom borders;Column & row grouping
Statistics
GitHub Stars
240.3K
GitHub Stars
21.6K
GitHub Forks
49.7K
GitHub Forks
3.2K
Stacks
182.6K
Stacks
58
Followers
147.0K
Followers
77
Votes
4.1K
Votes
6
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 837
    Components
  • 674
    Virtual dom
  • 579
    Performance
  • 509
    Simplicity
  • 442
    Composable
Cons
  • 41
    Requires discipline to keep architecture organized
  • 30
    No predefined way to structure your app
  • 29
    Need to be familiar with lots of third party packages
  • 13
    JSX
  • 10
    Not enterprise friendly
Pros
  • 5
    Excel in browser
  • 1
    Open Source Edition

What are some alternatives to React, Handsontable?

jQuery

jQuery

jQuery is a cross-platform JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML.

AngularJS

AngularJS

AngularJS lets you write client-side web applications as if you had a smarter browser. It lets you use good old HTML (or HAML, Jade and friends!) as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly. It automatically synchronizes data from your UI (view) with your JavaScript objects (model) through 2-way data binding.

Vue.js

Vue.js

It is a library for building interactive web interfaces. It provides data-reactive components with a simple and flexible API.

jQuery UI

jQuery UI

Whether you're building highly interactive web applications or you just need to add a date picker to a form control, jQuery UI is the perfect choice.

Svelte

Svelte

If you've ever built a JavaScript application, the chances are you've encountered – or at least heard of – frameworks like React, Angular, Vue and Ractive. Like Svelte, these tools all share a goal of making it easy to build slick interactive user interfaces. Rather than interpreting your application code at run time, your app is converted into ideal JavaScript at build time. That means you don't pay the performance cost of the framework's abstractions, or incur a penalty when your app first loads.

Flux

Flux

Flux is the application architecture that Facebook uses for building client-side web applications. It complements React's composable view components by utilizing a unidirectional data flow. It's more of a pattern rather than a formal framework, and you can start using Flux immediately without a lot of new code.

Famo.us

Famo.us

Famo.us is a free and open source JavaScript platform for building mobile apps and desktop experiences. What makes Famo.us unique is its JavaScript rendering engine and 3D physics engine that gives developers the power and tools to build native quality apps and animations using pure JavaScript.

Riot

Riot

Riot brings custom tags to all browsers. Think React + Polymer but with enjoyable syntax and a small learning curve.

Marko

Marko

Marko is a really fast and lightweight HTML-based templating engine that compiles templates to readable Node.js-compatible JavaScript modules, and it works on the server and in the browser. It supports streaming, async rendering and custom tags.

Kendo UI

Kendo UI

Fast, light, complete: 70+ jQuery-based UI widgets in one powerful toolset. AngularJS integration, Bootstrap support, mobile controls, offline data solution.

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