TanStack Table vs AG Grid — Which React Data Table in 2026

I've shipped dashboards using both. Here's the practical comparison.

The Core Difference

This is the most important thing to understand:

TanStack Table is headless. It gives you state management, sorting logic, filtering logic and pagination logic. You build the actual table HTML/JSX yourself. Zero UI opinions.

AG Grid is a complete component. It renders its own table, handles its own styles, has its own theming system. You configure it, it renders everything.

That difference affects everything downstream.

TanStack Table

TanStack Table (formerly React Table) v8 is what I use for most dashboards. With shadcn/ui Table components for the UI layer it's an excellent combination.

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const table = useReactTable({
  data,
  columns,
  getCoreRowModel: getCoreRowModel(),
  getSortedRowModel: getSortedRowModel(),
  getFilteredRowModel: getFilteredRowModel(),
  getPaginationRowModel: getPaginationRowModel(),
})

Then you render with your own UI:

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<Table>
  <TableHeader>
    {table.getHeaderGroups().map(hg => (
      <TableRow key={hg.id}>
        {hg.headers.map(header => (
          <TableHead key={header.id} onClick={() => header.column.toggleSorting()}>
            {flexRender(header.column.columnDef.header, header.getContext())}
          </TableHead>
        ))}
      </TableRow>
    ))}
  </TableHeader>
  ...
</Table>

Pros:

• Completely free, MIT license
• Headless — use any UI library you want
• Small bundle (~14KB)
• Works with shadcn/ui, Tailwind, Bootstrap or anything else
• TypeScript first

Cons:

• More code to write — you build the entire UI
• No built-in virtual scrolling (use react-virtual separately)
• No built-in Excel export
• No row grouping/aggregation in the free tier (it's all free, just not built)

AG Grid

AG Grid Community is a full-featured grid that renders its own UI. Drop it in and you get a complete data grid immediately.

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import { AgGridReact } from 'ag-grid-react'

<AgGridReact
  rowData={data}
  columnDefs={columns}
  pagination={true}
  sortable={true}
  filter={true}
/>

Pros (Community — free):

• Feature-rich out of the box
• Excellent performance with large datasets
• Built-in virtual scrolling
• Column resizing, pinning, hiding built in
• Copy/paste support

Cons (Community):

• Larger bundle (~200KB+ for full features)
• Opinionated styling — customising to match your design takes effort
• AG Grid's own CSS system, not Tailwind/Bootstrap
• Enterprise features locked behind paid licence

AG Grid Enterprise adds:

• Row grouping and aggregation
• Pivot tables
• Server-side row model for truly massive datasets
• Excel export
• Tree data
• Master/detail rows

Enterprise pricing starts around $1,200/developer/year — significant, but worth it for the right use case.

Performance

Both are fast for typical dashboard use cases (under 10,000 rows). The difference shows at scale.

AG Grid Community has built-in virtual DOM rendering — it renders only visible rows even for 100,000+ row datasets. TanStack Table doesn't include this — you add @tanstack/react-virtual separately.

For most admin dashboards you'll never hit the limits of either.

My Decision Framework

Use TanStack Table when:

• You're using shadcn/ui or Tailwind and want visual consistency
• You need a custom look that matches your design system
• Your dataset is under ~10,000 rows
• You want zero cost, full control
• Standard sort/filter/pagination is all you need

Use AG Grid Community when:

• You need virtual scrolling out of the box without extra libraries
• Column pinning and resizing are important
• Your team is comfortable with AG Grid's styling system
• Large datasets (10,000-100,000 rows)

Use AG Grid Enterprise when:

• You need Excel export — this alone often justifies it for B2B tools
• Row grouping and aggregation
• Server-side row model for millions of rows
• Your client/company has budget and specifically needs these features

My Default

TanStack Table + shadcn/ui. It integrates cleanly with the modern React stack, gives complete visual control and costs nothing. The headless model means the table looks like the rest of the app, not like a third-party component dropped in.

The only time I reach for AG Grid is when a client specifically needs Excel export or the server-side row model for genuinely massive datasets. Both of those require Enterprise, so the cost conversation happens before I choose it.