The Top WinForms Datagrids: A Comprehensive Guide

Third-party WinForms datagrids bolster the .NET development landscape by offering a wealth of built-in features beyond what DataGridView natively provides. Yet, with so many options out there, selecting the ideal one for your project can be challenging. We'll explore and compare five third-party WinForms datagrid solutions from MESCIUS, DevExpress, Telerik, Infragistics, and SyncFusion.

Exploring their display, editing, and analysis features will help you determine which datagrid best suits your development needs. The best option will cover these three bases comprehensively.

ComponentOne FlexGrid From MESCIUS

FlexGrid is one of the most feature-rich datagrid solutions available. Its fast performance is ideal for handling large datasets quickly and efficiently. FlexGrid goes beyond basic functionalities like sorting and filtering to offer advanced capabilities and extensive design-time tools for creating complex data-driven applications.

Display Features

One of the key advantages of FlexGrid is its extensive customization options, allowing full control over grid and cell appearance, including advanced features like the OwnerDrawCell event for precise cell drawing control:

• Cell Merging – Automatically combine adjacent cells with matching values for a cleaner look.

  
  

• Custom UI Elements – Embed specialized UI components within grid cells to enhance functionality.

• Stylish Themes and Customization – Quickly apply and switch between modern themes and custom styles.

• Column Bands – Improve data organization by grouping related columns together.

  
  

• Frozen Columns/Rows – Keep important data in view by freezing specific columns or rows.

• Collapsible Row Details – Access additional information without cluttering the main view.

  
  

Editing Features

FlexGrid supports all DataGridView editing features, including adding and deleting rows, clipboard operations, read-only cells, and input validation. However, FlexGrid goes further by adding custom cell editors that reduce the need for custom code. These specialized editors for specific data types, similar to Excel-style editing, improve data entry accuracy. Additional features include:

• Excel-Like Cell Selection – Allows for familiar, efficient cell selection similar to Excel.
• Import Data Features – Easily import data directly into the grid from various sources.

Analysis Features

FlexGrid's biggest strength lies in its comprehensive analysis features, far surpassing the capabilities of DataGridView and most other competitors. For those aiming to create applications with robust analysis capabilities, FlexGrid offers an array of built-in features:

• Sorting – Sort by single or multiple columns for better data organization.

• Grouping – Group data to view it in a more structured and meaningful way.

• Filtering Operations – Apply Excel-like filters and full-text filtering for precise data analysis. Use the filter row to display filtering criteria below the column header, providing easy visibility.

• Subtotals and Aggregates – Compute subtotals and aggregate values with ease, giving you quick insights into your data.

• Conditional Formatting – Automatically highlight key data points using customizable conditional formatting rules.

• Instant Search – Locate entries across millions of records instantly with the intuitive FlexGridSearchPanel.

DevExpress

DevExpress focuses heavily on display and user interface features. With a wide range of advanced view options, customizable themes, and sophisticated data visualization tools, you can create visually stunning and highly functional applications.

Display Features

DevExpress’s rich array of display features and flexible View-based architecture allows you to move beyond the tabular layout to create compelling user interfaces.

• Advanced Views – View options include GridView, Banded Column Views, Tile View, Kanban Board, Card Layout View, Explorer View, and Carousel/Card View.

  
  

• Extensive Theme Options – Choose from over 50 themes and skins, or create your own with the DevExpress WinForms Skin-Theme Editor.

• Master-Detail Layouts – Set up complex data hierarchies with unlimited nesting levels and detailed rows.

Editing Features

• Versatile Data Editors – Integrate a variety of data editors, such as text box controls, date pickers, rich text editors, and data lookups.

• Custom Edit Forms – Use separate forms for data editing outside the grid or design tailored forms for specific editing requirements.

  • Edit Masks/HTML Formatting – Apply edit masks and HTML formatting to maintain data integrity.

    
    

Analysis Features

While DevExpress impresses with its display features, the analytics and reporting features are limited in comparison:

• Instant Search and Data Filtering – Use Instant Search, Excel-inspired filtering, and custom filter UIs to locate and filter data.

• Conditional Formatting – Highlight cells or rows based on criteria with animated data bars, icons, and color scales.

Telerik

Telerik's WinForms GridView control combines performance, flexibility, and ease of use. It's part of the Telerik UI for WinForms package, which includes over 160 UI controls. Telerik supports developers with extensive documentation, demos, virtual classrooms, and Visual Studio Extensions.

Display Features

• Ready-to-Use Themes – Use the ThemeBuilder tool for detailed customization of the four built-in themes without deep CSS knowledge.

• Figma Kits – Simplify collaboration between designers and developers with perfectly matching design building blocks.

• Context Menus – RadGridView offers integrated context menus that provide relevant commands based on the selected element, cell, header, etc. All context menus are customizable.

• ToolTips – Specify tooltips for various cell types to deliver additional information to end users.

  
  

Editing Features

Telerik’s WinForms Grid control includes some novel editing features for creating useful and intuitive data entry forms:

• Signature – Allows users to capture signatures directly within the grid, useful for applications requiring approvals or confirmations.

• Rating – Lets users rate items with a visual rating system, adding an interactive element to your applications.

• ComboBox – Display a list of options while also allowing users to type text to avoid scrolling through long lists.

  
  

Analysis Features

While Telerik does provide reporting tools, it lacks any kind of detailed analysis capabilities, relying instead on integration with Google Analytics to supplement:

• Data Validation – To improve data integrity and precision, set rules on the type of data or values users can enter into cells. Define criteria for text length, numerical values, and dates, or create custom conditions.

• Formulas – Perform calculations through over 200 built-in functions. Custom formulas are also supported.

Infragistics

Infragistics Ultimate UI for Windows Forms is a comprehensive library encompassing over 100 data charts, grids, controls, and components. This WinForm Grid control solution is known for its unique support for creating touch-enabled applications. It meets the needs of touch-device users with features like touch metrics support, vertical and multidirectional panning, and multi-gesture support.

Display Features

• AppStylist® – Customize every detail of your theme with this stand-alone application.

• Custom Layouts – Achieve versatile display options with CardView and Row Layout designers, allowing split rows and column regions.

• Format Cells Dialog – Customize cell data by modifying number formats, alignment, fonts, shading, and borders.

  
  

Editing Features

Infragistics provides a versatile and user-friendly array of editors to control data entry and display. Some of the editors and editing features include:

• Calculator Drop Down – Integrates a calculator directly into your forms for convenient calculations.

• Spell Checker and Custom Dictionary Support – Enhances text input fields with spell-check functionality and support for custom dictionaries.

  
  

• Ultimate Radio Button – Automatically deselects other linked radio buttons when one is selected.

• Excel-Type Operations – Brings spreadsheet capabilities to your applications with the UltraGrid control, including Excel-like formulas, column filtering, and cell merging.

• Form Editor – Focuses on the display aspect of the form, allowing you to color non-client areas and edit other visual details without extra code.

Analysis Features

Infragistics’ analysis features can be used to create powerful applications that help users and businesses extract meaningful insights from their data:

• Pivot Grid – Easily manipulate OLAP cube or data warehouse data with intuitive slicing, dicing, and filtering.

• Business Intelligence – Analyze multidimensional data from cubes, data warehouses, and SQL Server Analysis Services.

• Drag and Drop – Effortlessly rearrange data fields with simple drag-and-drop functionality.

• Interactive Filtering and Sorting – Customize data views with flexible filtering options and organize data by text, number, date, or color with ease.

• Expandable – Drilldown into data with expandable row and column fields.

Syncfusion

Syncfusion’s WinForms DataGrid packs a formidable array of display, editing, and analysis tools, ideal for crafting data-centric applications. However, compared to competitors like FlexGrid, it falls short on distinctive visual design elements.

Display Features

• Column Chooser – Toggle column visibility at runtime using a customizable column chooser UI.

• Context Menu – Design custom context menus for different rows, such as record rows, summary rows, and group caption headers.

• Freeze Panes – Keep important data in view by freezing rows and columns, allowing for scrolling on unfixed sections.

• Unbound Columns and Rows – Display unbound columns and rows with custom data, supporting expressions to calculate values, and display data not bound to a field or data source.

• Cell Merging – Dynamically merge data in adjacent cells to present data in a single cell.

Editing Features

Syncfusion’s editing experience involves a variety of built-in column types like ComboBox, DateTime, and CheckBox for editing cell values. Changes can be committed or rolled back using the IEditableObject implementation. Other features include:

• Custom Columns – Modify built-in column types as needed.

• Conditional Formatting – Adjust the appearance of cells, rows, or columns based on data conditions.

• Preview Row – Provide expandable or collapsible preview rows for additional information, enabled by custom drawing logic.

  
  

Analysis Features

• Data Error Indication and Validation – Validate cells and display error information using validation types like IDataErrorInfo, INotifyDataErrorInfo, and Data Annotations.

  
  

• Sorting and Grouping – Sort and group data by one or more columns, with customization options and custom logic support.

• Filtering – Filter data using a built-in filter row or an Excel-inspired filtering UI.

• Summaries – Calculate and display aggregates in tables or groups. Display summaries as total, group, or custom summaries.

• Text Search – Search and highlight text within the data grid, filtering records based on search criteria.

Conclusion

ComponentOne FlexGrid is the whole package – offering the best, most comprehensive features for display, editing, and analysis. It emerges as the top contender for developers seeking a blend of efficiency, versatility, and robust performance in data grid solutions.

Its intuitive design-time tools, such as the C1FlexGrid Column Editor and Style Editor, streamline binding and styling tasks with accessible menus, drastically cutting down development hours.

By allowing developers to embed specialized UI components within grid cells, FlexGrid empowers the creation of highly customized applications that precisely meet diverse user needs.

Flexgrid’s extensibility means developers aren’t confined to out-of-the-box features. This lets developers stretch their creativity, tailoring controls precisely to their unique requirements.

Ideal for enterprise-scale applications, FlexGrid effortlessly manages large datasets with advanced rendering and efficient scrolling, ensuring swift responsiveness. Its Excel-like features, including tailored cell editors and user-friendly data entry functionalities, provide a seamless experience for users familiar with spreadsheet environments.

FlexGrid’s comprehensive built-in analysis tools – ranging from sorting and grouping to powerful filtering options – enable developers to implement complex data management features without extensive custom coding. This makes it an ideal choice for developing data-driven applications where efficient data manipulation and insightful analytics are crucial.