10 Best Drag and Drop React Libraries for Effortless UI Interactions

Drag and drop is an intuitive user interface (UI) interaction that allows moving screen elements by "grabbing" them with a mouse or finger and placing them elsewhere. This improves UX by enabling rapid reorganization in an visual, hands-on way.

React developers can save significant time building these interactions from scratch using pre-made drag and drop libraries. These provide reusable components for dragging, dropping, sorting, and arranging UI elements.

In this guide, we‘ll cover the top React drag and drop libraries to effortlessly incorporate this behavior into your applications.

Why Use a Drag and Drop Library?

Here are some key benefits of using React drag and drop libraries:

Simpler Development – You avoid reinventing the wheel by leveraging pre-built components for dragging, dropping, sorting, etc. This saves huge development and testing effort.

Cross-Browser Support – Top libraries handle drag and drop intricacies and inconsistencies across browsers for you.

Mobile Support – Some libraries have touch capabilities out of the box for dragging/dropping on mobile.

Better UX – Well-designed interactions matched to use cases improves user experience.

Customization – While providing ready UI, libraries allow styling and behavior modifications.

Popular Examples – Libraries enable interactions similar to popular apps like Trello, GitHub projects, etc.

Now let‘s dive into the finest drag and drop libraries React has to offer! We‘ll cover what makes each unique with examples.

1. React DnD

React DnD is an incredibly robust library for complex drag and drop interfaces. It shines for use cases like re-orderable lists, multi-column workflows, and dragging data across apps.

Install

npm install react-dnd react-dnd-html5-backend

Key Features

  • Works by wrapping your components vs. pre-made widgets
  • Super extensible and pluggable architecture
  • Touch support via mobile backend
  • Easy testability with built-in mocking

React DnD has a steep learning curve but immense flexibility. While complex, it can handle intricate drag and drop behaviors apps demand.

2. React Draggable

React Draggable takes a lighter-weight approach for enabling draggability on elements. As one of the simplest libraries, it has low barriers to getting started.

Install

npm install react-draggable

Key Features

  • One dependency to add draggability quickly
  • Works with vanilla JS and React interchangeably
  • Plays nicely with other React libraries

When you need a straightforward way to make components draggable, React Draggable delivers without much fuss.

3. React Dropzone

React Dropzone provides drag and drop specifically for file uploading. The hook interface gives a clean way to handle files.

Install

npm install --save react-dropzone

Key Features

  • Zero styles imposed – full control over look
  • Configurable validations for accepted files
  • Simple hook makes integration straightforward

For drag and drop file uploads, React Dropzone makes implementation simple.

4. React Grid Layout

React Grid Layout is a responsive grid layout system enabling arranging widgets in a draggable resizable grid.

Install

npm install react-grid-layout

Key Features

  • Grid system for draggable resizable widgets
  • Breakpoint-based responsive layout configurations
  • No jQuery dependency

If you want widgets arranged in a grid format, React Grid Layout delivers fluid layouts adaptable across device sizes.

5. React RND

React RND provides components simply for making resizable and draggable elements.

Install

npm i -S react-rnd

Key Features

  • Simple but functional for draggable resizables
  • Works with JavaScript and TypeScript React apps
  • Easy to resize components on the fly

When you just need elements you can drag and resize, React RND supplies useful building blocks.

6. React Virtualized DND

React Virtualized DND introduces drag and drop for lists and tables backed by a virtual scrolling system.

Install

npm install --save react-virtualized-dnd

Key Features

  • Virtualized rendering system for better performance
  • Different drag and drop module options
  • Highly customizable implementations

For large data sets where smoothness matters, React Virtualized DND delivers optimized dragging and dropping.

7. React Movable

React Movable provides drag and drop interactions explicitly for lists and tables.

Install

yarn add react-movable

Key Features

  • Specialized for sorting/reordering lists
  • Tiny footprint at < 4kB gzipped
  • Builds on React transition group
  • Touch device support

When sorting structured data, React Movable gives a simple API tailored exactly for this use case.

8. Draggable

Draggable offers a comprehensive drag and drop library abstracting the raw browser events into a helper object.

Install

npm install @shopify/draggable --save 

Key Features

  • Robust API with many options
  • Modular components
  • Plugins extend functionality further
  • Active support and maintenance

For a fully-featured library covering all drag and drop needs, Draggable is a leading choice.

Key Decision Factors When Choosing a Library

With so many quality React drag and drop libraries, how do you select the right one? Here are some key considerations:

1. Specific Use Case

Certain libraries are purpose-built for particular uses like file handling or grid layouts. Match library capabilities closely to desired interactions.

2. Complexity Needs

Assess whether simple draggability meets needs or if a fuller-featured library like React DnD enables more advanced workflows.

3. Mobile Usage

If supporting touch devices, ensure the library works for mobile vs. just mouse drags.

4. Community Support

An active community indicates future maintenance and helpful documentation when issues arise.

5. Customization Requirements

Decide what level of styling, behavior modifications, etc need supported.

6. Typescript Integration

For TypeScript based projects, check for solid TypeScript support and typings.

By carefully weighing choices against application needs, you can smartly select the best fitting React drag and drop library.

Conclusion

Adding drag and drop interactions enhances user experience while reducing development effort using these ready-made React libraries.

Functionality spans from basic draggability to sortable lists and grids to robust frameworks. With sound UX principles, drag and drop gives users intuitive control over layouts and workflows.

Hopefully this guide has provided ideas on excellent libraries to evaluate for your next application requiring drag and drop capabilities!