Lexical vs Quill: Meta's editor framework or a ready-made editor
Lexical is Meta's MIT-licensed editor framework with no UI; Quill is a BSD-3-Clause editor with a toolbar and themes. We measured Lexical at 104.9 kB gzip and Quill at 58.7 kB, and our benchmark applications needed 25 and 8 lines.
TL;DR
- Lexical is a framework built around an immutable editor state, with plugins rather than an interface; Quill is a finished, themeable editor with a toolbar and the Delta document format.
- Measured: @lexical/react 0.50.0 with the rich-text and history plugins at 104.9 kB gzip, React external; quill 2.0.3 default build at 58.7 kB. Our benchmark applications needed 25 lines for Lexical and 8 for Quill.
- Both are permissively licensed — MIT and BSD-3-Clause — with no commercial tier. What separates them is how much editor you want to build and how actively each project releases.
Lexical vs Quill at a glance
Generated from the same dataset as the main table, so this cannot drift out of sync with the rest of the site.
| Fact | Lexical | Quill |
|---|---|---|
| Type | library | library |
| Licence | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| First release | 2022-01 | 2014-11 |
| Frameworks | Any (framework-agnostic) | Any (framework-agnostic) |
| SSR support | partial | Unverified |
| Bundle (min+gzip) | 104.9 kB gzip | 58.7 kB gzip |
| Price from | Free (open source) | Free (open source) |
| Drag & drop canvas | Partial | Unverified |
| Responsive breakpoints | No | No |
| Visual style manager | No | No |
| Custom components | Yes | Yes |
| Data binding | No | No |
| E-commerce blocks | No | No |
| Email HTML export | No | No |
| AI generation | No | Unverified |
| Editor i18n | Partial | Unverified |
| White label | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Our score (0–10) | 7.4 | Not scored |
| Last verified | 2026-08-20 | 2026-09-17 |
Opposite ends of the effort scale
Lexical needed more application code than any other editor in our time to first editor benchmark: 25 lines to render an editor with no toolbar. Quill needed 8 lines in our benchmark application to render one with a toolbar.
That gap is not a quality judgement. Lexical makes every piece — composer, rich-text behaviour, editable element, history — an explicit decision because it expects to be the foundation of a serious editing product. Quill assumes you want an editor now.
Where Lexical wins
A stricter state model. Immutable, transactional editor state, which makes behaviour predictable as documents and features grow.
Production scale behind the core. Meta built it for its own editing surfaces.
Active releases. 0.50.0 was published to npm in September 2026. The pre-1.0 version line means the API can still move, but the project is moving too.
First-party React binding. @lexical/react is maintained with the core. Quill's React wrappers
are community projects.
Your interface, not a theme. Nothing to override when the editor must match a design system.
Where Quill wins
About 44% less weight, with a toolbar. 58.7 kB gzip against 104.9 kB, and Quill's figure includes both themes and the toolbar module.
A third of the code. 8 lines against 25 in our benchmark applications.
No framework coupling. Quill mounts on a DOM node in any stack.
A stable major version. Quill is at 2.x; Lexical is pre-1.0.
Deltas as one format for documents and changes.
Migration between them
Both can exchange HTML, which is the realistic bridge: export Quill content as HTML and import it into Lexical with nodes covering the formats you used, or the reverse. Custom Quill formats become Lexical nodes; Lexical plugins become Quill modules. Expect to rewrite the integration layer either way.
Decision checklist
- Is the editor a core, long-lived part of our product? Yes favours Lexical.
- Do we need a toolbar this sprint? Quill has one.
- Are we on React? Lexical's binding is first-party; Quill's are community.
- How do we weigh release activity against API stability? Lexical releases often and is pre-1.0; Quill is 2.x with no release since November 2024.
- What is our JavaScript budget? The measured gap is 46.2 kB.
The number that matters
17 lines — the difference between our two benchmark applications, and the clearest measure of what each project expects you to build. The same trade appears between Quill and Tiptap, and the full category is on the rich-text editor comparison.
Frequently asked questions
- Which is lighter?
- Quill, at 58.7 kB gzip for its default build including both themes, against 104.9 kB for Lexical's composer with rich-text and history plugins, React external.
- Which needs less code?
- Quill: 8 lines in our benchmark application, with a toolbar, against Lexical's 25 lines, without one.
- Which is more actively released?
- Lexical: @lexical/react 0.50.0 was published to npm in September 2026. Quill's latest npm release, 2.0.3, dates from November 2024.
- Which handles very large or unusual documents better?
- Lexical is designed for that end of the problem — an immutable, transactional state model built for Meta's own products. Quill is sized for conventional rich-text fields.
Facts about Lexical were verified on 2026-08-20 and facts about Quill on 2026-09-17. Full source lists are on the Lexical review and the Quill review.