Downshift is a flexible and accessible library for building autocomplete, combobox, and select dropdown components in React applications. It provides a simple yet powerful API for managing the state and behavior of these complex UI components, including keyboard navigation, focus management, and aria attributes for accessibility.
React-Select is a flexible and customizable dropdown select component for React applications. It provides a rich set of features such as multi-select, async options loading, virtual scrolling, and clearable selections. React-Select offers a smooth user experience with keyboard navigation, accessibility support, and customizable styling options.
Alternatives:
downshift-+
chakra-ui-+
mui-+
headlessui-+
react-autosuggest-+
react-dropdown-+
react-selectize-+
react-super-select-+
react-aria-+
react-toolbox-+
Tags: reactdropdownselectcomponentcustomizable
Fight!
Popularity
Both Downshift and React-Select are popular packages in the React ecosystem. Downshift has gained popularity for its simplicity and flexibility, while React-Select is known for its extensive feature set and customization options.
Functionality
Downshift is a lightweight and minimalistic package that provides the core functionality for building accessible dropdowns and autocomplete components. It gives you low-level control over the behavior and rendering, allowing you to build custom components with ease. React-Select, on the other hand, is a feature-rich package that offers a wide range of ready-to-use components, including multi-select, async-loading, and tagging. It provides a polished UI and many configuration options out-of-the-box.
Flexibility
Downshift is highly flexible and allows you to build dropdown and autocomplete components tailored to your specific needs. It provides hooks and render prop APIs that enable you to have full control over the rendering and behavior of the components. React-Select is also flexible and customizable, but it may require more effort to achieve certain advanced customizations compared to Downshift.
Developer Experience
Both packages offer a good developer experience. Downshift provides a small API surface and does not impose any styling decisions, giving you more freedom in terms of design and theming. React-Select, on the other hand, offers a more opinionated approach with a larger API and integrated styling options. If you prefer more control and customization, Downshift might be a better option. If you prefer convenience and pre-styled components, React-Select can be a faster solution.
Community Support and Documentation
Both Downshift and React-Select have active communities and good documentation. Downshift has a smaller community but offers thorough documentation and examples. React-Select, being more feature-rich, has a larger community and provides extensive documentation and demos to guide users through its various features and customizations.
Performance
Due to its minimalistic nature, Downshift tends to be more performant in terms of bundle size and rendering speed. React-Select, being a larger package with more features, may have a slightly higher bundle size and rendering overhead. However, the performance difference might not be noticeable unless you have specific performance requirements or are working on a large-scale project.
