Grid vs. Table
The grid and table components are the two major offerings of react-bootstrap-data-grid. Both components display data in a tabular format.
The primary difference between the grid and table component is that the grid component uses div elements
with fixed width instead of the
HTML table element
and related child elements. This way of laying out cells is commonly found in other well-known data grid solutions, like
MUI-X Data Grid.
Perhaps the most noticeable difference of laying out cells this way is that the cell width can be tightly controlled.
Browsers appear to adhere closely to
width,
min-width, and
max-width settings for flex and
block display modes. In contrast, for a table, browsers can often ignore those CSS properties in order to
accommodate the contents of a cell.
Additionally, compared to the table component, the grid component:
- contains cells that have to a single line of text. Any text that overflows is omitted. When there is overflowing text, an ellipsis (...) at the end of the cell indicates that some text is not being displayed.
- allows each cell to be individually focusable. In contrast, in the table component only certain elements within the cells, like buttons or checkboxes, are focusable. (This feature is not yet implemented for the grid but will be implemented soon.)
- can be configured to either take up a fixed height or take on the intrinsic height of the contents. In contrast, the table component will always take on the intrinsic height of the contents.
- is relatively new and has far fewer features than the table component currently. Use the table component if you need one of its features that is not currently available on the grid component.
- is limited to a single line of text per row. Use the table component instead if you prefer for cells to be expandable to multiple lines to accommodate lengthier text content.