RadGrid Key Features

Updated on Oct 7, 2026

RadGrid provides data management, navigation, editing, accessibility, styling, and export features for ASP.NET AJAX applications.

RadGrid Feature Overview

The following features describe the main capabilities available in RadGrid:

• Cross-browser support covers Internet Explorer, Gecko-based browsers, Opera, Safari, and Chrome.

• Accessibility support includes the documented W3C and Section 508 compliance information. Review the RadGrid accessibility demo and the official Section 508 site.

• Hierarchical table structures and mixed load modes support related DataSet objects and detail-table templates. See the image below and the three-level hierarchy demo.

  

• Global item templates let you define a custom layout for each grid record.

• RadAjax integration and loading indicators improve responsiveness and minimize traffic to the server.

• Codeless data binding uses the data source controls introduced in ASP.NET 2.x and 3.x.

• Client-side binding supports client-side sorting, paging, and filtering. Various data sources are supported when they implement IList, IEnumerable, or ICustomTypeDescriptor.

• Filtering applies a filter pattern on a per-column basis. See the image below.

  

• Header context menus support sorting, grouping, and showing or hiding columns based on user preferences.

• Grouping with group footers and footer aggregates supports multilevel grouping, group-by expressions, and grouping by multiple columns. See the image below and the Outlook-style grouping demo.

  

• Multi-column sorting supports sorting by several columns and defining a color for sorted columns. See the image below and the sorting demo.

  

• View state optimization provides ServerBind, ServerOnDemand, and Client modes for loading detail tables.

• Control state support lets RadGrid track common features when view state is disabled.

• Grid state preservation after postback preserves the appearance, group-by state, sorting, current page, edit state, selected state, and resizing state after a postback.

• AJAX-based virtual scrolling supports navigation through large data structures. See the image below.

  

• Migration from Microsoft GridView to Telerik RadGrid uses similar declarative syntax to simplify migration from the DataGrid control.

• Rich column types include bound, checkbox, drop-down, button, hyperlink, client-select, date-time, numeric, masked, HTML editor, and template columns. See the image below and the column types demo.

  

• Paging displays grid data in smaller pages for easier navigation.

• Column and row resizing supports real-time resizing, resizing the grid when a column changes size, and clipping cell content.

• Drag and drop of grid items supports reordering records within a grid, moving them to another grid, or dropping them on another page element.

• Column reordering with drag and drop lets users reorder columns by dragging their headers. See the image below and the column resizing demo.

  

• Scrolling with static headers and frozen columns keeps headers visible and can keep selected columns fixed. See the image below and the scrolling demo.

  

• Multi-row and area selection supports selecting multiple rows with Ctrl + Click or by dragging across rows. See the image below and the row selection demo.

  

• Design-time support lets you build, customize, and populate a grid in the Visual Studio design environment.

• Client-side API support provides methods for resizing, moving, reordering, selecting, and scrolling columns.

• Exporting supports Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, CSV, and PDF formats.

• Flexible editing supports in-place editing, edit forms, custom edit forms, and popup edit forms.

• Custom editors let you replace default editors with validation, rich-text editing, or other functionality. See the image below and the custom editor demo.

  

• Appearance customization uses skins to customize grid elements, including individual DetailTable instances in a hierarchical grid.

• ListView and DataList-like layouts display data in a custom layout while retaining sorting, paging, and filtering.

• Keyboard support enables navigation, editing, and selection with the keyboard. See the keyboard navigation demo.

See Also

Continue with these related RadGrid resources:

• Review the RadGrid overview
• Get started with RadGrid