Want to Improve your user experience by adding an interactive Drag and Drop component to your website or Web App? Then, put a break on your search as you will find some of the best hand-picked Drag and Drop Libraries based on JavaScript (JS) in this post.
Moreover, among these libraries, we have also added some libraries that we have used in our products as ThemeSelection. Now, Drag and Drop is the most used and required feature in any Web App because of its endless uses.
Therefore, before we get on to our list of JavaScript Drag and Drop Library let’s understand what is drag and drop in programming and its advantages.
Table of contents
In general, Drag and Drop is an action of selecting an element, text, file, etc, and moving it is called a Drag action. Then, placing the same element into an alternative place is called a Drop action.
– Improve User Experience
– Drag and Drop Coding is more user-friendly
– It Reduces Human errors
– Makes your complex features easier
– Easy to manage complex tasks, and many more…
‘Drag and Drop’ in Programming.
Source: Freepik
As the name suggests, Drag and drop is a functionality in which the user selects an object in the section ‘Drag’, and then moves it to the desired section and places it there ‘Drop’. Now, this is the most common functionality we have been using for decades in our computers like dragging files from computer to desktop screens.
Furthermore, not only your computers but this functionality is been supported by all the major browsers. Adding a drag-and-drop functionality to your app has become very easy because of HTML5. In the past, to add this feature you need to install a separate third-party plugin to your websites.
But, due to HTML5 or we can say these JavaScript libraries it has become very easy to add this feature to your pages and web applications.
Drag-and-drop libraries can be used with any language in programming. It can be easily used with those languages that can easily manipulate HTML and CSS.
Drag and Drop JavaScript Library
Now, without wasting any time, let’s start our list of JavaScript Drag and Drop libraries. We have included libraries based on other JavaScript libraries like React, Angular, etc.
We also recommend using the best IDE in Programming to boost your workflow. IDEs can help you work effectively and also save you time by providing you with the best development environment.
React-Beautiful-DnD 
React Beautiful DND is a beautiful and accessible drag-and-drop library for lists built on React. It provides a great set of drag-and-drop features with the natural movement of an item to give your user and natural and beautiful drag-and-drop experience.
The Open source library enables a higher level of abstraction and it is built for lists (vertical, horizontal, movement between lists, nested lists, and so on). Moreover, React Beautiful DnD also supports the Multi Drag feature in which you can drag multiple items and you can also add and remove items during Drag and Drop.
Furthermore, this library is suitable for React-based projects. Also, while working on a React project, we suggest you use React Admin Dashboard to build modern eye-catching, responsive web apps.
Features
- Virtual List Support
- Mouse, Keyboard, and Touch Support.
- Screen Reader
- Conditional Dragging/Dropping
- Server-side rendering (SSR) compatible
- Custom Drag Handles
- Flexible Item Size and many more…
Sortable Drag and Drop Library 
Sortable is an open-source JavaScript Library for Reorderable drag-and-drop lists for modern browsers and touch devices. No jQuery or framework is required. Furthermore, it supports multi-dragging which allows users to select multiple items in the list and drag them as one item across multiple lists or within the same list.
There are many exciting features that the library supports but the best is Swap thresholds in which you can swap the items in the list when dragged and placed in a different position which will cause the other element to drag itself.
In addition, Sortable is built using Nativ HTML 5 Drag and Drop API and supports multiple frameworks like Meteor, Angular, React, Knockout, Ember, Vue, and many more.
Features
- Support Touch Devices and Modern Browser
- CSS Animation
- Smart Auto Scrolling
- Advanced Swap Detection
- Supports any CSS Library
- CDN, and many more…
To check this library on a live project, you can check Sneat Bootstrap HTML Admin Template where we have used the Sortable library to add the Drag and Drop interface to our Admin Template.
You can play with this demo from here
Also, check the latest Materio Bootstrap 5 HTML Admin template that uses the same drag & drop library.
Dragula: Helpful Drag and Drop Library 
Dragula is a useful and simple Drag and Drop JavaScript (JS) Library that provides the easiest possible API to easily deploy Drag and Drop in your applications. Furthermore, it will allow the users to drag an element in any of the containers and drop it in any other container in the list by default.
In addition, you can easily move elements between the containers and within them. You can also copy the element in your container and drop it as a paste in a different container. If you are working on WordPress, then there are some drag and drop funnel generators available that you can check.
Features
- Super easy to set up
- No bloated dependencies
- Figures out sort order on its own
- A shadow where the item would be dropped offers visual feedback
- Touch events!
- Seamlessly handles clicks without any configuration and many more…
It is recommended to use the Javascript Monorepo Tool while working on multiple projects. Monorepo tolls helps to maintain multiple project with ease.
React-DnD 
React DND is an ultimate library having a set of React utilities to build complex drag-and-drop interfaces by keeping the components decoupled. It comes with an architecture that is inspired by famous React libraries like Flux and Redux.
Furthermore, It easily works with any of your components as it wraps your components and injects props into them as the same pattern is being followed in React Router and Flummox.
Features
- It embraces unidirectional data flow
- Hides the platform quirks
- Extensible and Testable
- Touch Support
- Hooks API, and many more…
Vue.Draggable.Next 
Vue Draggable Next is a Vue-based drag and drop component based on Sortable that is Vue 3 compatible. It allows you to drag and drop and synchronize with the view model array in your Vuejs projects. Furthermore, it included full support for the features of Sortable.js.
The library has no jQuery dependency and you can also reuse existing components (such as vuetify, element, or vue material, etc.) and make them draggable using tag and componentData props.
Features
- Supports touch devices
- Supports drag handles and selectable text
- Smart auto-scrolling
- Support drag and drop between different lists
- Compatible with Vue.js 3.0 transition-group
- Cancellation support, and many more…
Also, check the Materio – Vuetify Vuejs 3 Admin Template which is the best Vue JS Admin Template.
This Vue Admin provides you with 45+ Basic and advanced Cards for eCommerce Analytics, CRM, Statistics, and Interactive Charts.
React-Grid-Layout 
React Grid Layout is a draggable and resizable Grid layout library that creates responsive Grid layouts for React. Furthermore, you can use React Grid Layout like any other component in your web application.
In addition, it features auto-packing, draggable and resizable widgets, static widgets, a fluid layout, and separate layouts per responsive breakpoint. You can also use the above demo in which you can Drag some boxes around, resize them, and resize the window to see the responsive breakpoints.
Features
- 100% React – no jQuery
- Draggable widgets
- Configurable packing: horizontal, vertical, or off
- Bounds checking for dragging and resizing
- The layout can be serialized and restored
- Compatibility with
<React.StrictMode>, and many more…
Furthermore, if you’re working on React projects, then I would recommend using Materio MUI React Next js Admin Template, it is the most developer-friendly and highly customizable React Admin template you have ever seen.
Check the Figma Version:
Materio Figma UI kit is one of the best UI Kits to use.
It’s one of the best Admin Panel Kit you have ever seen.
DropZone Drag and Drop Library 
Dropzone is an Open source JavaScript (JS) Drag and Drop Library that enables you to turn any HTML element into a Dropzone. Therefore, you can easily drag and drop a file onto it, and Dropzone will display the preview of your file, show the progress, and handle your upload process via XHR.
Moreover, the open-source Library is developer-friendly and highly customizable you can change it as per your need. It is trusted by thousands of users and you can easily get support from their GitHub discussions section or StackOverflow.
Features
- Images Thumbnail Preview
- High-DPI Screen Support
- Multiple files and synchronous uploads
- Progress updates
- Support for Amazon S3 Multipart upload
- Browser image resizing, and many more…
Draggable 
Draggable is a complete open-source Drag and Drop JavaScript (Js) Library that is all set to take control over your Drag and Drop behavior. It gives out a custom drag-and-drop experience as it abstracts native browser events into a comprehensive API.
In addition, draggable comes with additional modules like Sortable, Droppable, Swappable. It does not do any kind of sorting behavior while dragging but it does the heavy lifting e.g. creates a mirror, emits events, manages sensor events, and makes elements draggable.
Features
- Works with native drag, mouse, touch, and force touch events
- Can extend dragging behavior by hooking into the draggable event life cycle
- Can extend drag detection by adding sensors to draggable
- The library is targeted ES6 first
- Cross Browser compatibility, and many more…
Interact.JS 
Interact.JS is another Open-source JavaScript Drag and Drop library that enables resizing and multi-touch gestures for all the major browsers. It gives full control over the library by providing a simple, flexible API that gives all the pointer event data you’ll need to move elements around.
By default, Interact.Js doesn’t move elements for you instead, it styles an element so that it moves while a drag happens from your event listeners. In addition, you visit their official website, where they have mentioned some interactive examples with code.
Now, you must have seen such drag features in calendars used in web apps to make them more user-friendly and interactive. Now, if you want to add calendars to your web app then you can check our list of JavaScript Calender libraries.
Features
- Free and open-source
- Powerful snap and restriction modifiers
- Inertial throwing
- Multiple simultaneous interactions
- Unified API for touch and mouse events
- Auto-scroll
- Support for HTML and SVG, and many more…
MoveAble 
Movable is an advanced JavaScript Library that has the functionality to add many advanced features other than a drag-and-drop interface. Therefore, you can move your element by resizing, wrapping, pinching, Grouping, and many more.
Furthermore, to quickly start with this library you will also get useful documentation including API Documentation and how to use this library.
Apart from this, we also suggest using admin templates, Admin dashboard template is a collection of web pages created with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript or any JavaScript libraries used to construct the backend user interface of an online application. You can use them to build any web app.
Features
- Support SVG Elements (SVG, path, line, ellipse, g, rect, …etc)
- Support Major Browsers
- Support 3d Transform
- Groupable
- Pinchable
- Snappable, and many more…
DFlex 
DFlex is a modern JavaScript Library that is designed to add Drag and Drop interfaces to your modern app. Furthermore, the library is built on Vanilla JavaScript and it implements the enhanced transformation mechanism to manipulate the DOM elements.
Therefore, it does not reconstruct it as it has its scheduler and reconciliation making it one of the best JavaScript Drag and Drop libraries on GitHub. It has very neat architecture and parent/child architecture to deploy your Drag-and-drop interface more quickly.
Overall, it increases your development process when you add such a library. In addition, it is advisable to use the Admin Dashboard Template, which is a collection of web pages created with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript or any JavaScript libraries used to quickly construct the backend user interface of an online application.
Features
- Dynamic architecture.
- Customized and enhanced reconcile
- Prevent layout shift
- Headless and compatible with any modern JS framework.
- Animated transformation with each interaction.
- 4 types of custom events and custom layout state emitter., and many more…
Ng-Sortable 
Ng Sortable is an Open Source Drag and Drop Library that is built on Angular and supports Sortable and Draggable supports Touch devices with No jQuery used. Furthermore, it supports horizontal sorting in which Horizontal Drag and Drop can be achieved under the same library.
The Library uses ng-model to bind the sortable list items within the sortable elements and as-sortable to add the root element. Furthermore, you can also Enable/Disable drag and can control the runtime of the Drag.
Features
- Drag both Horizontally and Vertically.
- Drag and Drop items within a column.
- Drag and Drop items across columns.
- Ranking by Sorting and Change Status by Moving.
- Hooks are provided to invoke API after a particular action.
- Clone an item and drop, and many more…
DragSelect 
If you’re looking for an easy-to-use Drag and Drop JavaScript Library with no dependencies then you should go for this library. DragSelect supports module.exports, AMD Modules with define, es6 modules with .es6m versions and has a fallback to a global namespace for maximum out-of-the-box support.
Furthermore, DragSelect uses modifier keys to make multiple independent selections and it is Hyper Customizable. It is the most lightweight library with only a 12.4 KB zip size.
Features
- No dependencies
- Replicates operating system drag-selection in the browser
- Accessibility (a11y)
- Select, Drag, and Drop via the keyboard
- Supports all major browsers
- Supports SVG
- It supports mobile (touch interaction), and many more…
Wrap Up
There you Go! We have gathered up some of the Best JavaScript Drag and Drop Library. Drag and Drop undoubtedly is the most common and useful feature used on the web these days. Furthermore, it overall enhances your user experience of the website and sometimes makes your complex process easier.
HTML 5 drag and drop simplifies adding user-friendly interfaces to web apps. Use the recommended libraries or choose one based on your project’s needs.
Moreover, it’s up to you which JS Drag and Drop library you select to add the drag and drop feature to your project. We’d always recommend choosing a library based on your need and the requirement of the project.
Sortable JS Drag and Drop library as it is an easy-to-use and developer-friendly library. We at ThemeSelection have used Sortable in Sneat Bootstrap 5 HTML Admin Template, you can also check the live demo.
Also, if you’re looking for more such JavaScript libraries, check our list of JavaScript timeline libraries to add an interactive timeline to your web apps.
We hope you like this collection, kindly share it with your friends and colleagues.
Happy Coding Cheers!
