Hi Randy,

Firstly, I would like to sincerely apologize for the delayed response as we have been experiencing an unusually high number of tickets. I am sorry that it has taken longer than usual to respond to your concern and your patience is highly appreciated.

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1. First about the limit for the Column number :

In our Plugin, there is no limit when it comes to a number of Columns in any Table,

but there is a limit on every Hosting Server performance, so it will depend on your Hosting Server and WordPress configuration and performance in general.

Our QA Team has not been able to reach the limit so far, i think they went up to something like 80 Columns, but i can't say exactly for sure.

There are ways how you can mitigate the limitations of a specific hosting server or WP Configuration.

You can try raising the PHP Memory Limit on the Hosting server, if possible.

So let's say if they got 128 MB and if you start adding up huge number of columns or rows, and if that causes a slow down or crash your Page, then you can check with them if they can raise that PHP Memory Limit up,

to maybe 512 MB , then test again;

If it is the same, try going up to 1 GB perhaps, and try again;

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Another way can be increasing PHP Time Out Limit, that can help.

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Also, if you plan to use SQL Based Tables, ( Manual Tables or SQL Query based tables) 

for them we have this useful feature, server-side processing ( lazy load).

You can check more details here explained what it does exactly.

In short, it uses AJAX to only load a specific number of rows at a time.

If you have an SQL Table and enable server-side processing,

and if you set a low number of rows in 'Default rows per page' under Display Settings,  ( for example 1, 5 or 10)

In this case, if we set "10",  on the front-end Page it will only load 10 rows at a time,

 multiplied by your 100 columns, so 1000  rows will be loaded at one moment on the browser,

while all other rows are not loaded, they are hidden under the Table Pagination.

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Or If you don't use the server-side in that situation, then absolutely all table rows ( multiplied by number of columns) are loaded in the HTML of the Page on the browser,

which, depending on the number of rows you might have, could be extremely slow or crash the Page.

2. About a horizontal Scroll :

Yes, we have this option, in the Display settings of the Table.

You can enable "Scrollable" and the user can scroll horizontally.

More details about the Display configuration here.

3. There are also ways to make your Table look nicer, if you wish to have the initial Table load with just X number of Columns,

then have some of them hidden for a "more Detailed Table View".

We got this add-on Master-Details , which can be used if you wish to first present an initial table with less data/ less columns;

then if a user makes an action you set up,  it can load "more details" only for the selected row

(1. If the “Row click” is selected, users will be able to access details for a row by clicking on it. 

2. If the “Button click” is selected, a new column will be added to the table, where each row would get a button opening the details for it.)

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You an also set up in which way you wish the details to load;

1. It can be as a PopUp to reveal more columns of that row

2. A template Post with placeholders

3. Or a template Page with placeholders to load data for more columns of that row.

Please check more about Master Details here, with an example.

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And i just wanted to point out that you can try wpDataTables before purchasing

 on our sandbox Demo sites ( you can find links for the main plugin Demo,  

as well as add-on Demos, in my signature),

and there is a 15-day money-back guarantee period, 

so if you purchase the plugin, you can safely fully test it out, and if it doesn't fit your needs you can request and receive a refund in that period. ( same goes for all plugins and add-ons)

Let me know if you have any additional questions.