react-virtualized vs. react-window

Manipulating the DOM in web development can be costly, and libraries like react-window and react-virtualized aim to optimize this process by implementing list virtualization or windowing, which only renders visible list items to the DOM for improved performance. React-window is a lighter, more beginner-friendly library that offers core components for virtualizing lists and grids, while react-virtualized provides a broader set of features for more complex use cases, such as 2D collections that are not grids. Although react-window is smaller and faster with an overhead of less than 2KB, react-virtualized adds about 33.5KB to the build size and includes components like AutoSizer, CellMeasurer, and InfiniteLoader that facilitate dynamic sizing and infinite loading capabilities. Developers should choose between the two based on their specific needs, with react-window being ideal for simpler scenarios and react-virtualized offering comprehensive solutions with pre-built examples and documentation.