Build vs Buy: Should You Create Your Own Salesforce Grid Component?

Written by

Peter Gascoyne

September 8, 2025

Creating editable grid components using Lightning Web Components may seem straightforward at first, but complexity escalates quickly.

Why This Matters

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Creating editable grid components using Lightning Web Components may seem straightforward at first, but complexity escalates quickly. According to Salesforce documentation, LWC lightning-datatable can degrade in performance with large datasets and complex columns; more than 50 columns or 1,000 rows can slow things down. If you're building for scale, maintainability, and feature richness, here's what to consider:

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Option 1: Building Your Own Custom LWC Datatable

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Pros

Fully tailored UI and logic
Zero licensing costs
Complete control for niche workflows

Cons

Major technical overhead:
- Performance pitfalls with inline editing and row actions
- Complex logic for permissions, filters, and conditional formatting
- Ongoing maintenance with every Salesforce release
Hidden long-term costs: Harvard Business Review finds 70% of in-house software overruns time or budget
Risk of uncapped resource consumption, internal reports warn tech teams often underestimate ongoing dev time

Option 2: Buying a Native App Like Grids by RavenApps

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Advantages

Instant deployment: configure user-ready grid views in minutes
Feature-rich out of the box:
- Bulk inline edits, filterable views, sparklines
- Conditional formatting and nested "grids within grids"
Fully native architecture
Regular updates aligned with Salesforce releases

Considerations

Subscription costs (though often lower than dev time)
Slight UI limitations vs full custom build, but still highly configurable

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Build vs Buy: Side-by-Side Comparison

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Build vs Buy: Side-by-Side Comparison
Eval Factor	Build (Custom LWC)	Buy (Grids by RavenApps)
Time to deploy	Weeks to months	Minutes to a few hours
Developer effort	High — setup + ongoing maintenance	Low — configurable, maintained by vendor
Performance risks	High — needs optimization on data size/features	Managed within Salesforce limits
Feature depth	Variable — must build every feature	Comprehensive from day one
Scalability	Risky as features grow	Built to scale with Salesforce
Support and updates	Internal responsibility	Updates included with app releases
Total cost	Hidden (dev hours, opportunity cost)	Predictable subscription

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ROI Examples from Real-world Scenarios

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DevOps platforms found that purchasing reduced integration costs by ~90%, saving hundreds of hours in dev time.
Building grid-like components often diverts senior developer time from revenue-generating projects.

FAQs

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Q: Can I get inline editing in LWC datatable?
A: Only up to a point, simple fields are supported, but multi-record inline editing, bulk actions, and complex field types aren't natively available

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Q: What are the limits of lightning-datatable performance?
A: Salesforce recommends ≤1,000 rows and ≤5 columns to avoid slowdowns; more will impact interaction speed

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Q: How often do you need to maintain a DIY LWC solution?
A: Every Salesforce release (three times a year) may require updates. As org complexity grows, so does the maintenance burden. Vendor apps absorb that for you.

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Q: Are native apps secure?
A: Yes. Grids are 100% native, no external data, respect all standard Salesforce permissions and security reviews.

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TL;DR – Your Decision Framework

✔ Build if you need total UI control, have dev capacity, and a small dataset.
✔ Buy if speed, stability, feature richness, and low ongoing overhead matter most.

If you'd rather use your developer hours for innovation, not grid-building, Grids by RavenApps is built for speed, scale, and Salesforce harmony.

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