UPDATE:
Sorry, this was a missunderstanding on my part.
There are free and commercially supported versions - (see Rumen's answer).
Does anyone know of a similar component, for use with ASP.NET MVC, which is either free or cheaper?
Thanks
EDIT:
If looks like I may have got the licensing terms wrong. From this page, it looked like there was no free for commercial use option. But, According to last poster this is incorrect. Can anyone else confirm it is free for commercial use?
Hi!
jqGrid from http://www.trirand.com/blog/?page_id=6 is a free open source jQuery plugin wich exist a long time and is in my opinion the best table/grid plugin for jQuery. The newest version of this you can download from http://github.com/tonytomov/jqGrid. If you use jQuery 1.4.x you have to do this. jqGrid 3.6.4 have some small compatibility problems with jQuery 1.4.x which are fixed on GitHub.
Since a short time on http://www.trirand.net/default.aspx you can buy a commercial version of jqGrid. If you are a classical ASP.NET programmer which like use drag & drop from the Visual Studio's toolbox and don't want really write any JavaScript program I recommend you to use the commercial version of jqGrid. If you know JavaScript and jQuery you can successfully use the free open source version of jqGrid. I do this and be happy. You can find enough examples how you can use this version in your ASP.NET MVC application like http://haacked.com/archive/2009/04/14/using-jquery-grid-with-asp.net-mvc.aspx or http://blogs.teamb.com/craigstuntz/tag/jqgrid/.
I personally use 3 parts model in my web application: for business logic I use RESTfull WFC web service which deliver JSON responses. I host this WFC service in IIS and publish as a part of my ASP.NET MVC based web site. All presentation logic I implement in ASP.NET MVC with JavaScripts using jQuery and jqGrid (free open source version). All JSON requests to fill/modify data in jqGrid will be sent to WFC service. I like this architecture model.
Updated: Just now after think about this subject I purchase a commercial version of jqGrid. I am not sure, that just now I'll replace my existing code in the current project to the new one, but I decide to support jqGrid developer team from my side. I find that every good job should be reward.
I just want to confirm what Oleg said. jqGrid client-side (as shipped on trirand.com/blog) is open-source under GPL/MIT licenses and you can use it if you wish.
We have recently launched separate commercial products shipped on http://www.trirand.net that reuse the client-side but have server-side counterparts for PHP, ASP.NET WebForms and ASP.NET MVC. The idea is to provide support for commercial team, guaranteed support/response, guaranteed bug fix and a more convenient way to use the product for the specific platform. These products are commercial.
So just pick what is best for you.
Have used jqGrid for over 2 years on enterprise-scale app and am very happy with it. It has some minor bugs here and there but the crucial functions are well tested and it is extremely well supported. Tony from the jqGrid team is very responsive and helpful, best of all there are lots of examples out there, see http://geekswithblogs.net/renso/ for examples. The inline editing is a bit in-mature but cell-editing is very good and the form edit I have used all the time and users find it very "cool". The ajax support is probably the best part other than that the css looks fantastic.