Chapter 03 of 34
Build it yourself, ag-Grid or GuiExpert Table?
A sober comparison – what you get, what you don't, and a rule of thumb.
After this chapter you can
- compare licence, features and frameworks
- decide which tool fits your project
Three options
After chapter 2 (Virtual scrolling) you know the core trick. Now there are three ways forward: build the rest yourself, use the market leader ag-Grid (free Community or commercial Enterprise edition), or use the GuiExpert Table. No new code in this chapter – a decision aid.
Comparison
As of October 2026. The ag-Grid column follows ag-grid.com: Community vs. Enterprise and Licensing – check there yourself before you decide, features and terms change.
| Build it yourself | ag-Grid Community | ag-Grid Enterprise | GuiExpert Table | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Licence | yours | MIT, free | commercial, per developer; watermark without key | MIT, free – also commercially |
| Virtual scrolling | yourself (ch. 2) | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ rows and columns |
| Excel export | yourself | – | ✔ | ✔ without extra library (ch. 24) |
| Range selection & clipboard | yourself | – | ✔ | ✔ (ch. 22) |
| Server-side row model | yourself | – | ✔ | – own area model (ch. 17) |
| Row grouping / pivot | yourself | – | ✔ | – tree table (ch. 30) |
| Filter UI | yourself | ✔ | ✔ | – filter function, the UI is yours (ch. 21) |
| Frameworks | – | React, Angular, Vue, JS | React, Angular, Vue, JS | Angular 14–22, React, Vue, Svelte 4/5, Solid, Preact, Web Component, JS |
| Runtime dependencies | – | – | – | none |
Rule of thumb
Read more
- Blog: Top framework-agnostic data table libraries
- All features of the GuiExpert Table and the licence
- The honest list of what is not built in: chapter 34 (Checklist & finale)
Next
Decided to give it a try? chapter 4 (Installation) takes two minutes.