Comparison: SvGrid vs AG Grid vs TanStack Table

This is the page enterprise evaluators land on first. It is honest. The three projects solve overlapping problems and the right choice depends on your stack, your budget, and which constraints bite hardest.

TL;DR

When SvGrid is the right choice

• You're on Svelte 5 and want a grid that uses the runtime's idioms (snippets for cells, $state for data, $derived for aggregates) - not a React-port pretending to be Svelte.
• You want a headless core you can render yourself AND a default-styled component for the 80% case. Most "headless" libraries make you write the markup; most "monolith" libraries make you fight the markup. SvGrid does both in one package.
• You need clean theming via CSS custom properties and a documented --sg-* token surface, not a hard-coded class soup.
• You ship under strict CSP (no eval, no new Function, no inline scripts). SvGrid runs clean; AG Grid Community does too. TanStack Table is engine-only so the question doesn't apply.
• You want SSR markup that is meaningful before hydration (good first paint, SEO, SvelteKit +page.server integration). SvGrid + TanStack Table both qualify. AG Grid renders client-side.

When AG Grid is the right choice

• You're on React, Angular, or Vue, not Svelte. SvGrid is Svelte-only.
• You need every grid feature shipped out of the box: row drag, master-detail with built-in API, range selection, status bar, context menu, column tool panel, integrated charts (Enterprise), Excel-native pivot UI (Enterprise), server-side row model (Enterprise).
• You need enterprise commercial support with SLAs. AG sells it; SvGrid Pro support is best-effort.

When TanStack Table is the right choice

• You want a rendering-framework-agnostic engine so the same business logic powers React + Svelte + Solid surfaces in your monorepo.
• You're already in the TanStack ecosystem (Query, Router, Form, Virtual) and want one mental model.
• You're happy writing all the markup yourself - the row recycling, the keyboard map, the ARIA roles, the focus management, the drag-to-resize. That's the cost of "engine only".

Feature parity at a glance

Bundle size

Measured gzipped, with Svelte treated as a peer dependency and excluded (the bundlephobia convention):

The full render component is the whole grid - virtualization, Excel-style filters, inline editing, grouping, tree, master/detail, and accessibility - in one import. For reference, the headless core is lighter than TanStack Table's headless engine (~12-14 KB), and the render component is a fraction of AG Grid Community (commonly cited around 340 KB minified). sv-grid-pro features are separate subpath imports that lazy-load, so they add nothing to your initial bundle until used.

Migrating from AG Grid

The most common starting point. See Migrating from AG Grid for a 30-minute, side-by-side translation of column defs, features, filtering, editing, and the imperative API.

Migrating from TanStack Table

The map is one-to-one - SvGrid's headless core is API-compatible with TanStack Table's React adapter in 90% of cases. The big differences:

• Replace useReactTable(opts) with createSvGrid(opts). Identical state machine.
• Replace getCoreRowModel() calls with the same name from sv-grid-community.
• The render layer changes - TanStack hands you flexRender + the row model; SvGrid lets you keep that headless approach OR drop in the default <SvGrid> component.

Pricing

SvGrid Community is MIT - free for commercial use, no attribution required at runtime. SvGrid Pro is a paid license; see https://sv-grid.dev/pricing for per-seat / per-app / multi-app tiers.

AG Grid Community is MIT. AG Grid Enterprise pricing is on ag-grid.com; expect a per-developer annual license plus a separate deployment license for production.

TanStack Table is MIT.

See also

• Why headless? - the design decision behind SvGrid's two-layer architecture.
• Migrating from AG Grid - the practical recipe.
• Pro feature pack - what SvGrid charges for.
• Missing features - the honest gap list versus AG Grid Enterprise.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best data grid for Svelte 5?

For a Svelte-5-native grid with a batteries-included render component, SvGrid is purpose-built for runes and snippets. TanStack Table is a strong headless-only choice if you want to build the DOM layer yourself across frameworks. AG Grid is the most feature-complete but lives in React/Angular/Vue first and is heavy to bridge into Svelte 5.

Is SvGrid a good AG Grid alternative?

Yes, for Svelte projects. SvGrid ships a much smaller bundle (~42 KB gzipped for the full render component, ~7.5 KB headless) than AG Grid Community, is MIT-licensed for commercial use, and offers sv-grid-pro for export/pivot/import at a per-developer price instead of AG Grid Enterprise's per-deployment licensing. It does not yet match every AG Grid Enterprise feature - see the missing-features list for the honest gaps.

SvGrid vs TanStack Table - which should I pick?

Pick SvGrid if you want virtualization, Excel-style filters, selection, and inline editing working out of the box on Svelte 5. Pick TanStack Table if you want a framework-agnostic headless engine and are happy to build the rendering, virtualization, and editing UI yourself. Both are MIT-licensed.

How big is the SvGrid bundle?

Measured gzipped (Svelte excluded as a peer dependency): 7.5 KB for the headless core and ~42 KB for the full <SvGrid> render component (189 KB minified). Pro features are separate, lazy-loaded subpath imports, so you ship only what you import.