Ask HN: Is AG Grid worth it?

table has two parts to it, displaying of data and datawrangling. If you separate datawrangling part to api or sql or arquero than displaying of data becomes quite simple. You may not need ag-grid like library.

Take a look at:

https://blueprintjs.com/docs/#table/features

https://www.rowsncolumns.app/

Depending on your needs they can be more powerful than ag-grid (and free)

Ended up with Ag-Grid after using a couple other data tables in the past and have been using it for 4 years or so. Still the best product in the market in my eyes.

Only you can decide whether it's worth it for you - this depends on how many of its features you can actively use.

I also do not find it crappy, as otherwise written here. API is pretty solid and mighty (still, only ever used it with vanilla JS, not with frameworks - things might feel different with frameworks) and documentation is good enough. Occasionally have to look up stuff in its sourcecode though.

Otherwise: There's an open source version. Unless you need the features marked as "enterprise" features, you can at least try out the integration already. There are some pretty elementary features like row grouping part of the enterprise version, though, so do not assume you'll be able to actually stay on the community edition.

We have extensively used AG Grid and highly recommended it.

The learning curve is actually quite low (as you identified).

We primarily use it with Stimulus JS and Alpine JS.

The trickiest part was writing server side code for supporting all the filtering pivots, aggregations and calculations in a manner that is both performant and secure.

Have a play with the community version first and if you’re liking it, checkout the enterprise version.

I've used AG Grid at many of my companies and found it worth the price.

I've also dabbled in Perspective (https://github.com/finos/perspective), but it may be overkill for you. It was a fun project similar to SQL Workbench where data can be uploaded and consumed from a specific IWMS API for client-side analysis. It's quite powerful and open source.

I have used Ag Grid extensively for many years in financial sphere. I can tell you it is quite crappy as API, as documentation, support and in general as a product. The problem is - what is the alternative? I haven't been able to find it and it is absurd you can make it yourself. I have thought about it and I almost made a conclusion that it is worthy doing a new commercial project.

Context? You should be using @tanstack/react-table unless you have a good reason for AG Grid.

If you're a FinTech startup with 2 years under your belt, you have the latitude to adopt whatever you want provided it pays the bills (read: satisfies debt repayments).

You're already mired in deep inefficiencies with GraphQL and Vue, why not double down? You don't need to make a profit you just need to repay your debt until you exit.

You're under no obligation to pass savings onto your investors. Might as well do things as questionably as possible at all levels of stack.

It's not like they're going to call you out on poor engineering decisions so why worry about the details? Do whatever they think is "cool" and "neat", take their money, and when things look dire sell to a larger company who can absorb your losses. Just like everyone else.