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Draft.js VS Summernote

Compare Draft.js VS Summernote and see what are their differences

Draft.js logo Draft.js

Rich Text Editor Framework for React

Summernote logo Summernote

Summernote is a JavaScript library that helps users create WYSIWYG editors online.
  • Draft.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-03-29
  • Summernote Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-18

Draft.js features and specs

  • Rich Text Editing
    Draft.js provides a powerful framework for building rich text editors with a high level of customization, allowing developers to implement various formatting and styling options with ease.
  • Immutable.js Integration
    Draft.js uses Immutable.js to manage editor state, which can lead to improved performance and easier state management, as it helps avoid unnecessary re-renders and mutations.
  • Extensibility
    The library offers the ability to create custom blocks, decorations, and plugins, enabling developers to extend and tailor the editor's behavior to their specific needs.
  • Facebook Support
    Draft.js is developed and maintained by Facebook, which suggests a certain level of reliability and indicates a strong backing in terms of updates and community support.
  • Comprehensive Documentation
    The library is well-documented, with comprehensive guides and examples that help developers get started quickly and understand the full potential of the framework.

Possible disadvantages of Draft.js

  • Complexity
    Draft.js has a steep learning curve, especially for developers who are not familiar with React or Immutable.js, as it requires understanding its unique architecture and concepts.
  • Bundle Size
    The inclusion of Immutable.js can lead to a larger bundle size for web applications, which might be a concern for developers aiming for minimalistic and fast-loading applications.
  • Limited Built-in Features
    Draft.js provides a basic editor out of the box, which means developers often need to implement or find third-party plugins for advanced features like tables, embedded media, or collaborative editing.
  • Customizability Overhead
    While high customizability is a strength, it also means that basic implementations may involve more boilerplate code and setup compared to other, more out-of-the-box solutions.
  • Sparse Updates
    Draft.js does not receive updates as frequently as some other open-source projects, which can lead to uncertainty around the timeline for bug fixes or new feature implementations.

Summernote features and specs

  • User-friendly Interface
    Summernote has a simple and intuitive user interface that makes it easy for users to start creating rich text content without a steep learning curve.
  • Extensible with Plugins
    Summernote supports a variety of plugins which expand its functionality, allowing customization to meet specific needs.
  • Bootstrap Integration
    Out of the box, Summernote is designed to work seamlessly with Bootstrap, making it a good choice for developers already using this front-end framework.
  • Open Source
    Being an open-source project, Summernote is free to use, and developers can contribute to its improvement and adapt it to their specific needs.
  • Lightweight
    Summernote is a lightweight editor, meaning it has a small file size which can result in faster loading times for web pages.
  • Image Upload and Drag & Drop
    Summernote supports easy and intuitive image uploads and drag & drop functionality, enhancing the user experience.

Possible disadvantages of Summernote

  • Limited Advanced Features
    Compared to more comprehensive editors like CKEditor or TinyMCE, Summernote may lack some advanced features that power users might need.
  • Dependency on jQuery
    Summernote depends on jQuery, which could be a drawback for projects that aim to minimize dependencies or use a different framework.
  • Browser Compatibility Issues
    Some users have reported occasional issues with browser compatibility, which might affect the consistency of user experience across different environments.
  • Performance with Large Documents
    Summernote can experience performance issues when handling large documents or complex content, which can be a limitation for more extensive use cases.
  • Limited Support
    Being an open-source project, professional support options are limited compared to commercial editors which offer formal customer support.

Analysis of Summernote

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Summernote is considered a good and reliable option for implementing WYSIWYG text editing. It is user-friendly, easily customizable, and supported by a strong community of developers.

Why this product is good

  • Summernote is a popular WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that is highly regarded for its simplicity, ease of integration, and flexibility. It is open-source and offers features like drag-and-drop image uploads, keyboard shortcuts, and support for various formats. Its lightweight nature and compatibility with major frameworks such as Bootstrap make it a versatile choice for developers looking to implement rich text editing capabilities into their web applications.

Recommended for

    Summernote is recommended for developers and teams building web applications that need an intuitive and reliable rich text editor. It's particularly suitable for projects where ease of use, rapid integration, and support for responsive design are key considerations, such as blogging platforms, content management systems, and any web application that requires user-generated content input.

Draft.js videos

Live coding – Draft.js copy-paste fix

Summernote videos

Demo Summernote WYSIWYG CodeIgniter

More videos:

  • Review - สอน Laravel Framework - Summernote WYSIWYG editor

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Draft.js and Summernote)
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Text Editors
43 43%
57% 57
Rich Text Editor
46 46%
54% 54
WYSIWYG Editor
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Draft.js and Summernote

Draft.js Reviews

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Summernote Reviews

Looking for a CKEditor? Try these 10 Alternatives
Summernote is a simple yet feature-rich WYSIWYG editor that supports real-time collaboration, image and file uploads, and various formatting options. It's a great alternative to CKEditor for those looking for an editor that is easy to use and has a modern design.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Draft.js should be more popular than Summernote. It has been mentiond 28 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Draft.js mentions (28)

  • Rebuilding a web text editor
    Therefore, we wanted to choose a low-level framework that would solve most of the issues related to text input. We settled on Draft.js, which was quite popular at the time (2020). All we had to do was integrate it into our current system, attach it to the data storage, and implement the ability to edit styles with our constructor—done. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Introducing react-rte-light: A Lightweight Rich Text Editor for React
    Are you looking for a lightweight, flexible, and modern rich text editor for your React applications? Look no further! I'm excited to share react-rte-light, a TypeScript-based rich text editor built with Draft.js. It’s designed to work seamlessly with React 16.8 to 19, offering a minimal-dependency alternative to heavier editors like React Quill. Whether you're building a blog platform, a note-taking app, or a... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Lexical 0.24 with Vanilla JS: Getting started
    Lexical is an open source project and considered the successor of Draft.js. It is primarily developed by Meta, licensed under MIT. It is not restricted to React, but supports Vanilla JS, too. The flexibility enables us to integrate it with other JS libraries such as Svelte and Vue. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Ask HN: Is there a licensable/free version of the "Substack" email editor?
    - https://draftjs.org/ If you're talking about liking the full experience with settings and previews, that I'm afraid is all custom built. I can't imagine an open source reusable one being out there, but I could be wrong! - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Which Rich Text Editor to use ?
    I've always used Quill and always satisfied with it. It can be adapted to React Native as well. Despite the most popular RTE is Draft js it has some limitations on mobile. Source: about 3 years ago
View more

Summernote mentions (5)

  • Ask HN: What is your favorite FOSS WYSIWYG editor?
    Installing Summernote (https://summernote.org) was easy. ProseMirror and Lexical seem much more complicated. - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago
  • WYSIWYG Editor Recommendation for Commercial/Enterprise Website Frontends?
    We use Summernote which is fine, there can be bugs with our integration but that is more down to our hacking around with it than the actual software. Source: over 4 years ago
  • Thoughts on Action Text
    These past days I tried Action Text for the first time and got a bit disappointed with it, in the end I ended up using Summernote (https://summernote.org/) instead, here are my thoughts on what could be improved:. Source: over 4 years ago
  • Remote service for web dev beginner?
    You can fairly easily add the ability to edit the text using something like https://summernote.org/ This one is for bootstrap, but there are others that are pretty good. (there's another one I've used before but I can't think of the name... Thought it started with an "L".). Source: over 4 years ago
  • Progress in my Revived Witch Wikia :^)
    I still need to add some dolls, but add the events list, the event details are incomplete but it is easy to edit although the data is saved in a database (mongodb) it is created with https://summernote.org, which works like word, but transforms the content to html. Source: almost 5 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Draft.js and Summernote, you can also consider the following products

Quill - Powerful, API-driven rich text editor

CKEditor - Real-time collaborative future-ready rich text editor

Next.js - A small framework for server-rendered universal JavaScript apps

Froala Editor - Froala Editor is a WYSIWYG HTML editor that enables rich text editing capabilities for the applications.

ProseMirror - A toolkit for building rich-text editors on the web

CKEditor 4 - CKEditor 4 is a rich text editor that enables you to write content inside of web pages or online applications.