React Markdown library comparisons
Each page compares React Markdown Kit with one library, section by section, and points
out where the other library is the better choice. Sizes come from
scripts/compare-bundles.mjs, performance from benchmarks/run.mjs, and behaviour from
tests linked on each page.
Renderer
- react-markdown alternative: What matches, the three differences, the codemod, and when you should stay on react-markdown.
- React Markdown Kit vs react-markdown: Install size, GFM, security defaults, streaming, server rendering, plugins and migration.
- React Markdown Kit vs markdown-to-jsx: Same sections, against the smallest import in the table.
- React Markdown Kit vs Streamdown: Same sections, for an AI chat UI that renders Markdown while it streams.
Editor
- React Markdown Kit Editor vs MDXEditor: Both are Lexical editors. Covers editing model, output format, round trip, bundle and migration.
- React Markdown Kit Editor vs Milkdown: Lexical against ProseMirror, same sections.
Templates, diagrams and slides
- Markdown templating vs Handlebars: Replacing placeholders in the string before parsing, compared with resolving them inside the parser.
- Mermaid Live Editor alternative: A visual canvas next to the text, compared with mermaid.live. The canvas handles flowcharts and sequence diagrams and saves plain Mermaid.
- Marp and Slidev alternative: Decks rendered inside a React app, compared with tools that export PDF and PPTX.
Install size, every import
One import of each package, bundled with esbuild 0.27.7 and measured on 2026-09-20. React and React DOM are external in every row, and 1 KB is 1024 bytes. The renderer is larger than react-markdown, and the editor is larger than Milkdown.
| Import | Version | Minified | Gzipped | License | Peer react |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| markdown-to-jsx | 9.10.3 | 76.8 KB | 27.8 KB | MIT | >= 16.0.0 |
| react-markdown, CommonMark | 10.1.0 | 115.0 KB | 35.5 KB | MIT | >=18 |
| @react-markdown-kit/renderer, CommonMark | 0.1.0 | 118.5 KB | 36.8 KB | MIT | >=18 |
| react-markdown + remark-gfm | 10.1.0 | 152.6 KB | 46.4 KB | MIT | >=18 |
| @react-markdown-kit/renderer + GFM preset | 0.1.0 | 158.1 KB | 48.5 KB | MIT | >=18 |
| @milkdown/react + @milkdown/preset-commonmark | 7.22.1 | 346.2 KB | 104.9 KB | MIT | * |
| @react-markdown-kit/editor | 0.1.0 | 349.7 KB | 110.3 KB | MIT | >=18 |
| streamdown | 2.6.0 | 506.0 KB | 152.2 KB | Apache-2.0 | ^18.0.0 || ^19.0.0 |
| @mdxeditor/editor | 4.2.5 | 511.3 KB | 163.1 KB | MIT | >= 18 || >= 19 |
Next
Renderer playground · Editor demo · Mermaid visual editor · Slides editor · Packages on npm · Source on GitHub