reactflow vs react-digraph
React Diagram Libraries Comparison
1 Year
reactflowreact-digraphSimilar Packages:
What's React Diagram Libraries?

React diagram libraries are specialized tools designed to facilitate the creation and manipulation of graphical representations of data structures, workflows, or processes within React applications. These libraries provide components and utilities that enable developers to build interactive and visually appealing diagrams, flowcharts, or graphs, enhancing the user experience and making complex information more digestible. They often come with features such as drag-and-drop functionality, customizable nodes and edges, and support for various layouts, making them ideal for applications that require visual data representation.

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reactflow636,18128,874184 kB10410 months agoMIT
react-digraph3,2812,6362.22 MB892 years agoMIT
Feature Comparison: reactflow vs react-digraph

Graph Representation

  • reactflow:

    reactflow supports a wider variety of graph types, including directed and undirected graphs, and allows for complex node structures. It provides flexibility in representing various data relationships and workflows, making it suitable for applications that require intricate visualizations.

  • react-digraph:

    react-digraph is specifically designed for directed graphs, allowing developers to easily create and manipulate nodes and edges. It provides a clear structure for representing relationships, making it ideal for scenarios where the direction of connections is important, such as flowcharts or dependency graphs.

Interactivity

  • reactflow:

    reactflow excels in interactivity, providing built-in support for drag-and-drop functionality, node resizing, and customizable interactions. It allows users to manipulate the diagram directly, enhancing user engagement and providing a more dynamic experience.

  • react-digraph:

    react-digraph offers basic interactivity features such as node selection and edge creation. However, it may require additional customization for more advanced interactions, making it less suitable for highly interactive applications without extra development effort.

Customization

  • reactflow:

    reactflow offers extensive customization options, allowing developers to define custom node types, styles, and behaviors. This flexibility enables the creation of tailored diagrams that fit specific application needs, making it a powerful choice for developers looking to create unique visual representations.

  • react-digraph:

    react-digraph allows for some level of customization, including styling nodes and edges, but it may be limited compared to more robust libraries. Developers can modify basic styles, but complex customizations may require additional effort.

Performance

  • reactflow:

    reactflow is optimized for performance, capable of handling larger graphs efficiently. It includes features like virtualization and memoization to ensure smooth interactions even with complex diagrams, making it a better choice for applications with extensive data.

  • react-digraph:

    react-digraph is lightweight and performs well for smaller graphs, but may face performance issues with larger datasets due to its simpler architecture. It is best suited for applications that do not require handling a large number of nodes and edges.

Learning Curve

  • reactflow:

    reactflow has a steeper learning curve due to its extensive features and customization options. While it offers powerful capabilities, developers may need to invest more time in understanding its API and functionalities to fully leverage its potential.

  • react-digraph:

    react-digraph has a relatively gentle learning curve, making it accessible for developers who are new to diagramming libraries. Its straightforward API allows for quick implementation, but may lack advanced features for more complex use cases.

How to Choose: reactflow vs react-digraph
  • reactflow:

    Choose reactflow if you are looking for a more comprehensive solution that supports complex workflows and allows for extensive customization. It excels in scenarios where you need to create interactive flow diagrams with features like zooming, panning, and node manipulation, making it suitable for applications like process modeling or visual programming.

  • react-digraph:

    Choose react-digraph if you need a library that focuses on directed graphs and offers a straightforward API for creating and managing graph structures. It is particularly useful for applications that require a clear representation of relationships and flows between entities, such as organizational charts or dependency graphs.

README for reactflow

readme-header

GitHub License MIT npm downloads GitHub Repo stars GitHub release (latest by date)

A highly customizable React component for building interactive graphs and node-based editors.

🚀 Getting Started | 📖 Documentation | 📺 Examples | ☎️ Discord | 💎 React Flow Pro


🚨 Upcoming Changes

The main branch is the home of @xyflow/svelte and the upcoming @xyflow/react (React Flow v12). The current version is maintained and lives on the v11 branch.

Key Features

  • Easy to use: Seamless zooming and panning, single- and multi selection of graph elements and keyboard shortcuts are supported out of the box
  • Customizable: Different node and edge types and support for custom nodes with multiple handles and custom edges
  • Fast rendering: Only nodes that have changed are re-rendered
  • Hooks and Utils: Hooks for handling nodes, edges and the viewport and graph helper functions
  • Plugin Components: Background, MiniMap and Controls
  • Reliable: Written in Typescript and tested with cypress

Commercial Usage

Are you using React Flow for a personal project? Great! No sponsorship needed, you can support us by reporting any bugs you find, sending us screenshots of your projects, and starring us on Github 🌟

Are you using React Flow at your organization and making money from it? Awesome! We rely on your support to keep React Flow developed and maintained under an MIT License, just how we like it. You can do that on the React Flow Pro website or through Github Sponsors.

You can find more information in our React Flow Pro FAQs.

Installation

The easiest way to get the latest version of React Flow is to install it via npm, yarn or pnpm:

npm install reactflow

Quick Start

This is only a very basic usage example of React Flow. To see everything that is possible with the library, please refer to the website for guides, examples and the full API reference.

import { useCallback } from 'react';
import ReactFlow, {
  MiniMap,
  Controls,
  Background,
  useNodesState,
  useEdgesState,
  addEdge,
} from 'reactflow';

import 'reactflow/dist/style.css';

const initialNodes = [
  { id: '1', position: { x: 0, y: 0 }, data: { label: '1' } },
  { id: '2', position: { x: 0, y: 100 }, data: { label: '2' } },
];

const initialEdges = [{ id: 'e1-2', source: '1', target: '2' }];

function Flow() {
  const [nodes, setNodes, onNodesChange] = useNodesState(initialNodes);
  const [edges, setEdges, onEdgesChange] = useEdgesState(initialEdges);

  const onConnect = useCallback((params) => setEdges((eds) => addEdge(params, eds)), [setEdges]);

  return (
    <ReactFlow
      nodes={nodes}
      edges={edges}
      onNodesChange={onNodesChange}
      onEdgesChange={onEdgesChange}
      onConnect={onConnect}
    >
      <MiniMap />
      <Controls />
      <Background />
    </ReactFlow>
  );
}

Development

Before you can start developing please make sure that you have pnpm installed (npm i -g pnpm). Then install the dependencies using pnpm: pnpm install.

For local development, you can use pnpm dev.

Testing

Testing is done with cypress. You can find the tests in the examples/cypress folder. In order to run the tests do:

pnpm test

Maintainers

React Flow is developed and maintained by webkid, a web development agency with focus on data driven applications from Berlin. If you need help or want to talk to us about a collaboration, feel free to contact us:

You can also use our contact form or join the React Flow Discord Server.

Community Packages

Credits

React Flow was initially developed for datablocks, a graph-based editor for transforming, analyzing and visualizing data in the browser. Under the hood, React Flow depends on these great libraries:

  • d3-zoom - used for zoom, pan and drag interactions with the graph canvas
  • d3-drag - used for making the nodes draggable
  • zustand - internal state management

License

React Flow is MIT licensed.