Top 4 React Native Dropdown components in 2024
Pick the best Dropdown component for your need
I was trying to find out the best dropdown component for one of my projects and there are plenty of npm drop-down packages available in the React Native world. But all of them have pros and cons in each component and picking one of them is a bit challenging work.
Therefore, in this article, I’m gonna discuss four drop-down components that I prefer and would help you to compare them with each other and pick the best-suited one for your requirement.
react-native-dropdown-select-list
This library has been released for around 7 months. Therefore, it still has few downloads per week yet but the download graph in npm shows an upward trend in weekly downloads. The library has been updated regularly and has typescript support as well. Only the creator of this package does maintenance for the package.
It provides two main components, one for Single Selection and the other one for Multiple Selection. You can specify what are the disabled items as well and has given you the power to customize the stylings of disabled items. But, you can’t disable the entire component.
The source code of the package reveals that this is fully written in javascript. All animations are even done using AnimatedAPI. Having animations is good for the user experience.
This package creator has provided a lot of properties to apply custom stylings so that a developer can take the advantage of them.
This package has built-in search functionality. It can be disabled if needed and customization for the search field is also available with different component properties.
Check more here.
Pros:
- typescript support
- multiple selections
- availability of multiple styling properties.
- includes animations
- includes built-in search functionality
- frequent package maintenance
- no native developments are involved to create the library
- able to disable an item in the list
Cons:
- Few downloads per week yet. Therefore, less community support
- No property to disable the component in higher level
react-native-dropdown-picker
This package has a significant number of weekly downloads compared to the previous package. Having a larger community is beneficial if something goes wrong or needs support.
One of the main benefits here is that they have proper documentation. Everything is properly mentioned from the scratch and is easy to use.
This package supports multiple items selection and additionally, it provides the grouping functionality as shown in the image(react-native-dropdown-picker: Group Selection).
It has searching capabilities and displaying loading indicator capability when the items are not ready to display. The library updates regularly and has a number of open issues as well. Also, written in javascript and has typescript support.
Check more here.
Pros:
- typescript support
- multiple and group selections
- well organized documentation
- availability of a large community
- frequent package maintenance
- no native developments are involved to create the library
- includes built-in search functionality and loading functionality
- availability of multiple styling properties.
Cons:
- No animations
React Native UI Kitten
React Native UI Kitten is one of the most popular UI frameworks available in the React Native world. They provide so many tools and a drop-down component is one of them. They have named the component Select.
Multi-selection and grouping functionalities are available with the component and have the disabled property to disable the component at a higher level.
Since this is a UI framework they have proper documentation which shows how the component works including a small video, a simple code snippet to try out, etc.
They provide methods such as show, hide, focus, blur, etc to programmatically manipulate the component.
Check more here.
Pros:
- typescript support
- multiple and group selections
- well organized documentation
- availability of a large community
- frequent package maintenance
- possible to add left and right components to SelectItem if needed
- able to programmatically change the component’s behaviors
Cons:
- No animations
- No searching functionality
native-base
native-base is also a recognized UI framework for React Native. The drop-down component is called Select. As you can see in the image below (native-base: Single Selection) this component behaves very differently compares to the above-mentioned three components.
For native-base version 2, the drop-down component is called Picker. If someone prefers the behavior of this component when showing the drop-down items, you can pick this component without any doubt.
This component doesn’t provide built-in search functionality, group selections, and multiple selections. They also have well-written documentation that covers every tool they provide.
Check more here.
Pros:
- typescript support
- well organized documentation
- availability of a large community
- frequent package maintenance
- includes animations
- able to programmatically change the component’s behaviors
- flexibility to change the dropdown icons
Cons:
- no search functionality
- no multiple selections
Final Thoughts
In this article, I have shown you the top 4 drop-down components in React Native world. Every one of them has its own pros and cons. You can pick any of them based on your preference.
Be aware that other than the components discussed in this article, there are many more dropdown libraries for you to try out and pick the best for your need.
I hope I have helped you to pick the best drop-down component to make your life easier. Stay tuned for more articles like this. Thank you for reading!
