Muuri vs React-Grid-Layout
Which should you use? A side-by-side look at what each one does, who it suits, what it costs, how hard it is to set up, and where each falls short.
Open source · MIT
A JavaScript library for building responsive grid layouts that can be sorted, filtered, and dragged.
Open source · MIT
A React component library for draggable, resizable grid layouts with responsive breakpoints.
The short answer
Choose Muuri if you need…
- Front-end developers building card or photo grids that need drag and drop or filtering
- Developers who want custom layouts beyond what CSS alone can do
- Projects that want layout, animation, and interaction in a single library
Choose React-Grid-Layout if you need…
- React developers building dashboards with movable panels
- Teams migrating from v1 who can use the legacy wrapper for a smoother transition
- Projects that need responsive layouts with different arrangements at different screen widths
- Developers who want TypeScript types included with the library
Side-by-side
| Muuri | React-Grid-Layout | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Library | Library |
| Price | Free and open source | Free and open source |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 10.9k | 22.5k |
| Setup difficulty | Intermediate | Intermediate |
| How you get it | Install with a package manager | Install with a package manager |
| Main language | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last code update | 2 years ago | 4 days ago |
What each one is
Muuri
Muuri is a JavaScript layout engine that arranges items in custom grid layouts that resize with the screen. It also adds animation, filtering, sorting, and drag and drop on top of the layout, so developers do not need to combine several separate libraries. The README describes it as a mix of Packery, Masonry, Isotope, and Sortable.
React-Grid-Layout
React-Grid-Layout is a grid layout system for React, similar in purpose to Packery or Gridster, that lets users drag and resize items within a grid. It is responsive and supports breakpoints, where layouts can be supplied by the developer or generated automatically. It is React-only and does not require jQuery.
Best for
Muuri
- Front-end developers building card or photo grids that need drag and drop or filtering
- Developers who want custom layouts beyond what CSS alone can do
- Projects that want layout, animation, and interaction in a single library
React-Grid-Layout
- React developers building dashboards with movable panels
- Teams migrating from v1 who can use the legacy wrapper for a smoother transition
- Projects that need responsive layouts with different arrangements at different screen widths
- Developers who want TypeScript types included with the library
Strengths
Muuri
- Bundles layout, animation, sorting, filtering, and drag and drop in one library
- Supports asynchronous layout calculation in web workers and nested grids
- Installable via npm or a CDN link, with a minimal starting configuration
React-Grid-Layout
- Supports responsive breakpoints, with layouts provided by the user or autogenerated
- Written in TypeScript with its own types in v2, and no jQuery dependency
- Includes many demos covering common patterns such as static items, bounded layouts, and min/max sizes
Not ideal for
Muuri
- Simple layouts that CSS grid or flexbox can handle, since the README says CSS is often enough and Muuri adds complexity
- People without JavaScript experience, because setup requires writing code and CSS rules
React-Grid-Layout
- Non-React projects, since the library is React-only
- Developers who need a simple static grid and not drag or resize behavior, where plain CSS grid is likely sufficient
- Teams that cannot update to a v2 API with a required width prop without reworking existing code
Trade-offs
Muuri
- Requires specific CSS rules, such as absolute positioning on items and no overflow auto or scroll on the grid element
- Browsers without Web Animations support need an extra polyfill
React-Grid-Layout
- v2 has breaking changes, including a required width prop and a removed UMD bundle, so upgrading takes effort
- Requires a bundler such as Vite, webpack, or esbuild since the UMD build was removed
- Drag start now fires after 3px of movement rather than on mousedown, which may change existing behavior
Getting started
React-Grid-Layout
Install from npm
npm install react-grid-layoutFrequently asked questions
What is the difference between Muuri and React-Grid-Layout?
Muuri: A JavaScript library for building responsive grid layouts that can be sorted, filtered, and dragged. React-Grid-Layout: A React component library for draggable, resizable grid layouts with responsive breakpoints. Muuri suits front-end developers building card or photo grids that need drag and drop or filtering, while React-Grid-Layout suits react developers building dashboards with movable panels.
Are Muuri and React-Grid-Layout free?
Muuri: Free and open source. React-Grid-Layout: Free and open source.
Is Muuri or React-Grid-Layout more popular?
React-Grid-Layout has more GitHub stars (22.5k) than Muuri (10.9k). Popularity isn't the same as fit — check which one matches your use case above.
What are other alternatives to Muuri and React-Grid-Layout?
Other options people compare them with include Masonry, Sortable, dnd-kit, Moveable, SnapKit.
Keep comparing
Built from our catalogue entries for both products: open-source details come from each project's README (AI-assisted, refreshed weekly) and GitHub data; AI-tool details are editorial. Spotted something wrong? Let us know from either product's page.