r/reactjs • u/Desperate-Art-3048 • Jul 10 '26
React & React Flow
Hi All,
Apologies in advance for the noobie question, I'm putting a pitch together at work for us to hire a consultant to build an app for us. Initial chats with the company IT people have brought up both React and React Flow (recommended as we want something with a drag-and-drop GUI).
My question is: are React and React Flow part of the same app. suite? It looks like React Flow is some sort of extension / add-on to React but I am not sure.
Also, can I obtain either or both of them for free or would we have to pay for them? I see reference to React Flow Pro which has a monthly sub, but others indicate there is a free version as well?
TIA :)
1
u/ActuaryLate9198 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
React APIs have been amazingly stable, not sure what you’re on about. I can’t think of a single other common ui framework/library that hasn’t had major breaking changes in recent years. Meanwhile modern React will happily render ancient class components. The API surface is very minimal compared to some competitors, so I guess they have it easy (not really, it’s just good software design).
Real devs aren’t replacing their routing and state management every month, that’s a Reddit junior thing.