In today’s fast-evolving software world, development teams have a wide choice of tools designed to enhance their coding experience and accelerate the overall project implementation. The diversity of UI components and widgets often leads to a dilemma in selection.
The DHTMLX vs Syncfusion comparison frequently surfaces in technical discussions and vendor evaluations. While online resources provide useful starting points, making informed architectural decisions requires deeper analysis beyond surface-level feature lists and marketing claims.
Both DHTMLX and Syncfusion are well-established vendors offering enterprise-ready UI component libraries, but their strategies and strengths differ significantly. That is why the question here is not which is better, DHTMLX or Syncfusion, but which is the most suitable for a specific project and its unique requirements.
This article provides a structured framework for evaluating commercial UI component libraries, with practical insights drawn from real-world enterprise implementations.
Why Ready-Made UI Components Matter in Modern Web Dev
The online environment has long been recognized as a key battleground for business competition across various industries. It is amazing to see how modern enterprise web applications streamline workflows and automate processes, making businesses more productive and achievement-oriented.
Off-the-shelf solutions rarely meet the specific requirements of a given project, making such an investment less viable. As an alternative, many organizations are ready to invest in building custom enterprise apps that fully cover their needs. However, developing a modern enterprise app entirely from scratch also demands significant time and resources, and is full of challenges such as performance, integration, scalability, and maintenance.
That is where frontend libraries for business applications come into play. They help developers strike a balance between speed and flexibility. The landscape of ready-made UI components has been growing and expanding with new solutions and approaches to efficiently handling various frontend issues for years. That is why choosing the best UI libraries for web apps may be a real headache.
Things become even more complicated when the scope of consideration includes open source options. But if we are talking about UI tools for implementing core functionalities in enterprise apps, comparisons like open-source vs commercial UI component sets almost always end in favor of the latter. Therefore, we’ll focus on commercial tools and consider how to compare DHTMLX and Syncfusion more effectively.
Feature Comparison of Popular UI Libraries
How do you tell that one UI tool is better than another? Some believe that the feature-by-feature comparison is the answer. Feature lists are good for a quick overview, but can be misleading. Such lists may be based on outdated information, include unverified claims, or highlight minor (or niche) features as major advantages. Apart from that, having a feature says nothing about its quality, depth of customization capabilities, and suitability for a particular project.
Vendor-created comparison pages have become increasingly common in the component library space. These resources, while appearing objective, are typically designed to position the vendor’s product favorably, sometimes including selective feature lists, cherry-picked reviews, or omitted competitor capabilities. This practice reflects standard competitive positioning, but decision-makers should recognize these materials as marketing assets rather than neutral evaluations.
The challenge extends to AI-generated recommendations, as large language models frequently synthesize information from vendor-curated comparisons without validating accuracy or recency. This amplifies existing biases in the source material.
Effective evaluation goes beyond checking feature boxes. For enterprise applications, the depth of implementation, customization flexibility, and architectural fit often matter more than raw feature counts. It often happens that many UI component libraries for enterprise can be excluded from consideration long before diving into time-consuming feature reviews. Starting with fundamental selection criteria (licensing models, ecosystem alignment, support structures, and architectural philosophy) provides a more reliable foundation for evaluation than feature-list comparisons alone.
Practical JavaScript UI Library Comparison by Key Selection Criteria
Top commercial UI libraries designed for the implementation of specific functionalities are likely to include a range of commonly used features. The difference often lies in the details, which become clear after a close examination. Therefore, it makes sense to start evaluating tools with a few fundamental criteria, providing a better picture of the products.
Here is how it works when comparing DHTMLX and Syncfusion:
| Criteria | DHTMLX | Syncfusion |
| Breadth of product portfolio | Focused on a curated set of enterprise-grade JavaScript components designed for complex data-driven applications (Gantt, Scheduler, Kanban, Grid, Spreadsheet, Diagram, etc.) | A broad, all-in-one suite of UI components covering web, mobile, and desktop platforms. |
| Ecosystem fit/Ease of integration | Built on a JavaScript-first architecture that integrates smoothly with modern frameworks and diverse backend technologies, supporting custom enterprise stacks. | Strongly aligned with the Microsoft ecosystem (.NET MAUI, Blazor, Xamarin), with additional UI component offerings for JavaScript frameworks. |
| Documentation | Clear, structured documentation with detailed API references, implementation guides, live examples, and demos. | Extensive documentation across multiple platforms, including code samples and demos. |
| Licensing and pricing terms | Perpetual licensing with flexible pricing. Components can be licensed individually or as part of enterprise-ready bundles. | Subscription-based licensing. Components are bundled into product editions (UI edition, Document SDK, etc.) rather than being licensed individually. |
| Support and updates | Technical support and updates are included for a fixed term, with optional renewal to ensure continued maintenance and long-term stability. | Included as part of the active subscription; access to updates and support depends on subscription status. |
| Support channels | Email-based support (with priority levels by license), plus community forums and Stack Overflow presence. | Public forums, feedback channels, and a ticket-based support system. |
| Special offers/discounts | Startup Program with significant discounts, along with special licensing options for non-commercial organizations. | Community licenses for individual developers and small teams, Microsoft MVP licenses, and educational discounts. |
Although this kind of comparison does not shed light on developer experience with Syncfusion and DHTMLX, it helps shape an overall impression of vendors, their priority areas, approaches to customer service, and suitability for teams and projects. Taking into account the information provided in the table, it becomes much easier to identify the best use cases for each library.
When to Choose DHTMLX
DHTMLX provides premium enterprise-grade JavaScript UI components, with a strategic focus on performance, deep customization capabilities, and scalability. Written with the use of modern development techniques, DHTMLX UI components easily hook into web projects based on top JS frameworks (React, Angular, Vue, Svelte) and backend stacks. The ability to purchase individual components means you pay only for what you need, while the perpetual license guarantees continued use of the product even after the support term expires.
DHTMLX components are trusted by leading organizations to build high-performance, scalable business applications:
- Zozio optimizes industrial production flows and IoT-based asset tracking with DHTMLX Gantt’s advanced resource management.
- TICGAL standardizes complex workflows across teams with DHTMLX Kanban, improving visibility and task coordination at scale.
- Kobra Dataworks leverages DHTMLX Gantt for logistics and project scheduling, optimizing resources and ensuring timely delivery in demanding environments.
- StaffPRO relies on DHTMLX Suite and Scheduler to manage workforce planning efficiently, supporting large teams with precision and reliability.
- Wolters Kluwer enhances enterprise dashboards with DHTMLX Grid, handling massive data volumes while enabling actionable insights for strategic decision-making.
- Dits Digital Solutions powers sophisticated resource planning systems with DHTMLX Scheduler, providing flexibility and integration in mission-critical enterprise apps.
DHTMLX is particularly well-suited for:
- Complex project and resource management solutions that demand robust Gantt, Scheduler, and Kanban functionality with granular control.
- Enterprise dashboards and data platforms with rich data grids, spreadsheets, analytical views, and diagramming tools requiring deep customization.
- CRM, ERP, and workflow systems where flexibility, performance, and extensive customization capabilities are mission-critical.
- Modern web and React ecosystems, providing seamless integration into hybrid enterprise stacks.
- Startups and innovation teams who seek to accelerate time-to-market while maintaining enterprise-grade quality and expanding into richer business use cases.
Development teams choose DHTMLX to accelerate the delivery of complex JavaScript-based applications, with strong support for React and the flexibility to integrate with a wide range of frontend frameworks and technologies as requirements evolve. DHTMLX components offer extensive customization options to tailor to unique enterprise workflows.
When to Choose Syncfusion
The core strength of Syncfusion lies in its diversity, ensured with a large collection of UI controls for web, desktop, and mobile. It is a natural choice for teams that rely on the Microsoft ecosystem and prefer to get tools for every possible UI need in one place. The Syncfusion subscription model can be appealing for long-term projects with predictable budgets and reliance on continuous updates across multiple platforms.
Syncfusion is well-suited for:
- Applications built around the Microsoft ecosystem, where tight alignment with .NET technologies such as Blazor, MAUI, or Xamarin is a priority.
- Cross-platform projects that require a consistent UI experience across web, desktop, and mobile environments.
- Solutions with strong document-generation and processing requirements, supported by dedicated document-focused SDKs.
- Individual developers, small teams, and early-stage products that benefit from the Community License and bundled component offerings.
- Teams prioritizing breadth of component coverage over deep customization for specific use cases.
With its broad component portfolio and strong alignment with the Microsoft ecosystem, Syncfusion is a practical choice for teams building multi-platform applications that prioritize coverage and consistency across various environments.
Ensuring Practical Suitability of UI Components for a Project
Theoretical suitability of UI components is great, but it is only half the battle. It is also necessary to confirm the practical value of such tools. Here is the list of recommendations to achieve this goal:
- Nothing beats hands-on evaluation; therefore, it is highly recommended to test the main functionalities and customization capabilities required for a specific project (commercial libraries usually come with a trial version).
- Run performance benchmarks with your own datasets.
- Check the official docs of the products to make sure that all necessary features are available and well-documented.
- Estimate a learning curve. Quality quick-start guides, API references, and tutorials should allow creating a simple demo in a short time.
- The presence of live feature samples and integration demos can also make the lives of dev teams much easier.
- Check GitHub repos and npm stats to make sure that products are highly adopted and regularly maintained.
- Visit popular forums for developers (on Reddit, Stack Overflow, etc.), where you can find honest insights from users on specific vendors and their products.
- When consulting AI chatbots on using enterprise-ready UI component libraries, take time to verify the generated results.
These recommendations can be a good practical addition to an evaluation guide for JavaScript UI components and other development tools.
Summing-Up
Both DHTMLX and Syncfusion are reputable companies with specific areas of competence in the programming world. Therefore, choosing between these big vendors is not about labeling them “better and worse”, which is always debatable, but rather about matching the right tool to the right project. To do that, you should not rely just on a single source of information (e.g. feature-by-feature comparison), but apply a combination of practical and theoretical steps to see the full value of each product under consideration.
DHTMLX provides highly specialized, premium enterprise-grade JavaScript UI components with an emphasis on performance, deep customization capabilities, and ease of integration in web-first projects. Syncfusion, in turn, stands out when you need a large collection of UI controls for various platforms from a single vendor.