react-burger-menu vs react-sidebar
React Sidebar Libraries Comparison
1 Year
react-burger-menureact-sidebarSimilar Packages:
What's React Sidebar Libraries?

React sidebar libraries provide developers with components to create responsive and interactive side navigation menus in React applications. These libraries simplify the implementation of sidebar navigation, allowing for customizable designs and behaviors that enhance user experience. They are particularly useful for applications that require a clean and organized way to navigate between different sections or features.

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react-burger-menu37,3005,087185 kB153 months agoMIT
react-sidebar18,2091,469-367 years agoMIT
Feature Comparison: react-burger-menu vs react-sidebar

Customization Options

  • react-burger-menu:

    react-burger-menu offers extensive customization options, allowing developers to choose from multiple predefined styles and animations for the sidebar. You can easily adjust the width, position, and transition effects, making it suitable for diverse design requirements. The library supports custom styling through CSS, enabling developers to match the sidebar's appearance with the overall application theme.

  • react-sidebar:

    react-sidebar provides a more structured approach to customization, allowing developers to define the sidebar's content and layout using React components. While it may not offer as many animation styles as react-burger-menu, it allows for flexible content management, making it easy to integrate complex components or dynamic content within the sidebar.

Animation and Transition Effects

  • react-burger-menu:

    The library is known for its smooth and visually appealing animation effects that enhance the user experience. It supports various transition styles, such as slide, scale, and push, which can be easily configured to create engaging interactions when the menu opens or closes.

  • react-sidebar:

    react-sidebar has basic animation capabilities, focusing more on functionality than flashy transitions. It provides simple slide-in and slide-out effects, which are sufficient for most use cases but may not offer the same level of visual flair as react-burger-menu.

Mobile Responsiveness

  • react-burger-menu:

    react-burger-menu is designed with mobile responsiveness in mind, making it an excellent choice for applications that need to cater to mobile users. The library adapts well to different screen sizes, ensuring that the sidebar remains user-friendly on smaller devices.

  • react-sidebar:

    react-sidebar can also be made responsive, but it requires additional configuration to ensure optimal usability on mobile devices. Developers may need to implement custom media queries and styles to achieve the desired mobile experience.

Ease of Use

  • react-burger-menu:

    This library is straightforward to implement, with a simple API that allows developers to get started quickly. The documentation is clear and provides examples, making it easy for newcomers to understand how to integrate the sidebar into their applications.

  • react-sidebar:

    react-sidebar also offers an easy-to-use API, but it may require a bit more setup compared to react-burger-menu. Developers need to manage the sidebar state and content more explicitly, which can add complexity for those unfamiliar with React state management.

Community and Support

  • react-burger-menu:

    react-burger-menu has a vibrant community and is actively maintained, providing a wealth of resources, including examples and community support. This makes it easier for developers to find solutions to common issues and share their experiences.

  • react-sidebar:

    react-sidebar has a smaller community compared to react-burger-menu, which may result in fewer resources and examples available online. However, it is still actively maintained, and developers can find support through GitHub issues and discussions.

How to Choose: react-burger-menu vs react-sidebar
  • react-burger-menu:

    Choose react-burger-menu if you need a highly customizable and visually appealing burger menu that can easily integrate into your existing layout. It offers various animation styles and is well-suited for mobile-first designs, making it ideal for applications that prioritize mobile usability.

  • react-sidebar:

    Choose react-sidebar if you require a more traditional sidebar layout that is flexible and easy to implement. It is great for applications that need a persistent sidebar that can accommodate various content types and provides a straightforward API for managing state and styles.

README for react-burger-menu

react-burger-menu Build Status code style: prettier

An off-canvas sidebar React component with a collection of effects and styles using CSS transitions and SVG path animations.

Using Redux? Check out redux-burger-menu for easy integration of react-burger-menu into your project.

Demo & examples

Live demo: negomi.github.io/react-burger-menu

To build the examples locally, first make sure you're using Node <11.0.0. Then run:

npm install
npm start

Then open localhost:8000 in a browser.

Tests

The test suite uses Mocha, Chai and Sinon, with jsdom.

To run the tests once, run:

npm test

To run them with a watcher, run:

npm run test:watch

Installation

The easiest way to use react-burger-menu is to install it from npm and include it in your own React build process (using Browserify, Webpack, etc).

You can also use the standalone build by including dist/react-burger-menu.js in your page. If you use this, make sure you have already included React, and it is available as a global variable.

Version 3.x uses Hooks, so if you're using React 16.8+:

npm install react-burger-menu --save

If you're using an earlier version of React:

npm install react-burger-menu@^2.9.2 --save

Usage

Items for the sidebar should be passed as child elements of the component using JSX.

import { slide as Menu } from 'react-burger-menu'

class Example extends React.Component {
  showSettings (event) {
    event.preventDefault();
    .
    .
    .
  }

  render () {
    // NOTE: You also need to provide styles, see https://github.com/negomi/react-burger-menu#styling
    return (
      <Menu>
        <a id="home" className="menu-item" href="/">Home</a>
        <a id="about" className="menu-item" href="/about">About</a>
        <a id="contact" className="menu-item" href="/contact">Contact</a>
        <a onClick={ this.showSettings } className="menu-item--small" href="">Settings</a>
      </Menu>
    );
  }
}

Animations

The example above imported slide which renders a menu that slides in on the page when the burger icon is clicked. To use a different animation you can substitute slide with any of the following (check out the demo to see the animations in action):

  • slide
  • stack
  • elastic
  • bubble
  • push
  • pushRotate
  • scaleDown
  • scaleRotate
  • fallDown
  • reveal

Properties

Some animations require certain other elements to be on your page:

  • Page wrapper - an element wrapping the rest of the content on your page (except elements with fixed positioning - see the wiki for details), placed after the menu component

    <Menu pageWrapId={ "page-wrap" } />
    <main id="page-wrap">
      .
      .
      .
    </main>
    
  • Outer container - an element containing everything, including the menu component

    <div id="outer-container">
      <Menu pageWrapId={ "page-wrap" } outerContainerId={ "outer-container" } />
      <main id="page-wrap">
        .
        .
        .
      </main>
    </div>
    

If you are using an animation that requires either/both of these elements, you need to give the element an ID, and pass that ID to the menu component as the pageWrapId and outerContainerId props respectively.

Check this table to see which animations require these elements:

Animation | pageWrapId | outerContainerId --- | :---: | :---: slide | | stack | | elastic | ✓ | ✓ bubble | | push | ✓ | ✓ pushRotate | ✓ | ✓ scaleDown | ✓ | ✓ scaleRotate | ✓ | ✓ fallDown | ✓ | ✓ reveal | ✓ | ✓

Position

The menu opens from the left by default. To have it open from the right, use the right prop. It's just a boolean so you don't need to specify a value. Then set the position of the button using CSS.

<Menu right />

Width

You can specify the width of the menu with the width prop. The default is 300.

<Menu width={ 280 } />
<Menu width={ '280px' } />
<Menu width={ '20%' } />

Open state

You can control whether the sidebar is open or closed with the isOpen prop. This is useful if you need to close the menu after a user clicks on an item in it, for example, or if you want to open the menu from some other button in addition to the standard burger icon. The default value is false.

// To render the menu open
<Menu isOpen />
<Menu isOpen={ true } />

// To render the menu closed
<Menu isOpen={ false } />

You can see a more detailed example of how to use isOpen here.

Note: If you want to render the menu open initially, you will need to set this property in your parent component's componentDidMount() function.

Open menu handler

If you keep the menu state yourself it might be convenient to pass a custom function to be used when the user triggers something that should open the menu.

Called when:

  • The user clicks on the burger icon
<Menu onOpen={ handleOnOpen } />

Note: The menu will NOT open automatically if you pass this prop, so you must handle it yourself.

Close menu handler

If you keep the menu state yourself it might be convenient to pass a custom function to be used when the user triggers something that should close the menu.

Called when:

  • The user clicks on the cross icon
  • The user clicks on the overlay
  • The user hits the escape key
<Menu onClose={ handleOnClose } />

Note: The menu will NOT close automatically if you pass this prop, so you must handle it yourself.

State change

You can detect whether the sidebar is open or closed by passing a callback function to onStateChange. The callback will receive an object containing the new state as its first argument.

var isMenuOpen = function(state) {
  return state.isOpen;
};

<Menu onStateChange={ isMenuOpen } />

Close on Escape

By default, the menu will close when the Escape key is pressed. To disable this behavior, you can pass the disableCloseOnEsc prop. This is useful in cases where you want the menu to be open all the time, for example if you're implementing a responsive menu that behaves differently depending on the browser width.

<Menu disableCloseOnEsc />

Custom keydown handler

For more control over global keypress functionality, you can override the handler that this component sets for window.addEventListener('keydown', handler), and pass a custom function. This could be useful if you are using multiple instances of this component, for example, and want to implement functionality to ensure that a single press of the Escape key closes them all.

const closeAllMenusOnEsc = (e) => {
  e = e || window.event;

  if (e.key === 'Escape' || e.keyCode === 27) {
    this.setState({areMenusOpen: false});
  }
};

<MenuOne customOnKeyDown={closeAllMenusOnEsc} isOpen={areMenusOpen} />
<MenuTwo customOnKeyDown={closeAllMenusOnEsc} isOpen={areMenusOpen} />

Note: Using this prop will disable all the default 'close on Escape' functionality, so you will need to handle this (including determining which key was pressed) yourself.

Overlay

You can turn off the default overlay with noOverlay.

<Menu noOverlay />

You can disable the overlay click event (i.e. prevent overlay clicks from closing the menu) with disableOverlayClick. This can either be a boolean, or a function that returns a boolean.

<Menu disableOverlayClick />
<Menu disableOverlayClick={() => shouldDisableOverlayClick()} />

Transitions

You can disable all transitions/animations by passing noTransition.

<Menu noTransition />

This is useful if you want the menu to remain open across re-mounts, for example during SPA route changes.

Custom icons

You can replace the default bars that make up the burger and cross icons with custom ReactElements. Pass them as the customBurgerIcon and customCrossIcon props respectively.

<Menu customBurgerIcon={ <img src="img/icon.svg" /> } />
<Menu customCrossIcon={ <img src="img/cross.svg" /> } />

You should adjust their size using the .bm-burger-button and .bm-cross-button classes, but the element itself will have the class .bm-icon or .bm-cross if you need to access it directly.

You can also disable the icon elements so they won't be included at all, by passing false to these props.

<Menu customBurgerIcon={ false } />
<Menu customCrossIcon={ false } />

This can be useful if you want exclusive external control of the menu, using the isOpen prop.

Custom ID and/or classNames

There are optional id and className props, which will simply add an ID or custom className to the rendered menu's outermost element. This is not required for any functionality, but could be useful for things like styling with CSS modules.

<Menu id={ "sidebar" } className={ "my-menu" } />

You can also pass custom classNames to the other elements:

<Menu burgerButtonClassName={ "my-class" } />
<Menu burgerBarClassName={ "my-class" } />
<Menu crossButtonClassName={ "my-class" } />
<Menu crossClassName={ "my-class" } />
<Menu menuClassName={ "my-class" } />
<Menu morphShapeClassName={ "my-class" } />
<Menu itemListClassName={ "my-class" } />
<Menu overlayClassName={ "my-class" } />

And to the html and body elements (applied when the menu is open):

<Menu htmlClassName={ "my-class" } />
<Menu bodyClassName={ "my-class" } />

Note: Passing these props will prevent the menu from applying styles to the html or body elements automatically. See here for more explanation.

Focusing the first menu item

By default, the menu will set focus on the first item when opened. This is to help with keyboard navigation. If you don't want this functionality, you can pass the disableAutoFocus prop.

<Menu disableAutoFocus />

Custom item list element

The menu's children are all wrapped in a nav element by default, as navigation is likely the most common use case for this component. However, it's a general purpose sidebar, so you can change this to a div if you're not using it for navigation:

<Menu itemListElement="div" />

Styling

All the animations are handled internally by the component. However, the visual styles (colors, fonts etc.) are not, and need to be supplied, either with CSS or with a JavaScript object passed as the styles prop.

CSS

The component has the following helper classes:

/* Position and sizing of burger button */
.bm-burger-button {
  position: fixed;
  width: 36px;
  height: 30px;
  left: 36px;
  top: 36px;
}

/* Color/shape of burger icon bars */
.bm-burger-bars {
  background: #373a47;
}

/* Color/shape of burger icon bars on hover*/
.bm-burger-bars-hover {
  background: #a90000;
}

/* Position and sizing of clickable cross button */
.bm-cross-button {
  height: 24px;
  width: 24px;
}

/* Color/shape of close button cross */
.bm-cross {
  background: #bdc3c7;
}

/*
Sidebar wrapper styles
Note: Beware of modifying this element as it can break the animations - you should not need to touch it in most cases
*/
.bm-menu-wrap {
  position: fixed;
  height: 100%;
}

/* General sidebar styles */
.bm-menu {
  background: #373a47;
  padding: 2.5em 1.5em 0;
  font-size: 1.15em;
}

/* Morph shape necessary with bubble or elastic */
.bm-morph-shape {
  fill: #373a47;
}

/* Wrapper for item list */
.bm-item-list {
  color: #b8b7ad;
  padding: 0.8em;
}

/* Individual item */
.bm-item {
  display: inline-block;
}

/* Styling of overlay */
.bm-overlay {
  background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3);
}

JavaScript

The same styles can be written as a JavaScript object like this:

var styles = {
  bmBurgerButton: {
    position: 'fixed',
    width: '36px',
    height: '30px',
    left: '36px',
    top: '36px'
  },
  bmBurgerBars: {
    background: '#373a47'
  },
  bmBurgerBarsHover: {
    background: '#a90000'
  },
  bmCrossButton: {
    height: '24px',
    width: '24px'
  },
  bmCross: {
    background: '#bdc3c7'
  },
  bmMenuWrap: {
    position: 'fixed',
    height: '100%'
  },
  bmMenu: {
    background: '#373a47',
    padding: '2.5em 1.5em 0',
    fontSize: '1.15em'
  },
  bmMorphShape: {
    fill: '#373a47'
  },
  bmItemList: {
    color: '#b8b7ad',
    padding: '0.8em'
  },
  bmItem: {
    display: 'inline-block'
  },
  bmOverlay: {
    background: 'rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3)'
  }
}

<Menu styles={ styles } />

Browser support

Because this project uses CSS3 features, it's only meant for modern browsers. Some browsers currently fail to apply some of the animations correctly.

Chrome and Firefox have full support, but Safari and IE have strange behavior for some of the menus.

Help

Check the FAQ (https://github.com/negomi/react-burger-menu/wiki/FAQ) to see if your question has been answered already, or open a new issue.

License

MIT