Handlebars.js vs Mustache

Overview

Mustache

Stacks2.4K

Followers415

Votes50

GitHub Stars16.7K

Forks2.4K

Handlebars.js

Stacks8.3K

Followers3.2K

Votes308

Handlebars.js vs Mustache: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Handlebars.js and Mustache are both popular templating languages that allow developers to generate HTML dynamically. While they share similarities, there are several key differences between the two.

1. Expressiveness:

Handlebars.js is more expressive than Mustache, offering additional features such as helpers, partials, and block expressions. Helpers allow developers to define custom functions that can be used to modify or manipulate data before rendering. Partial templates enable the reuse of common code snippets across multiple templates. Block expressions provide conditional rendering and looping capabilities. In contrast, Mustache focuses on simplicity and does not provide these advanced features.

2. Context Sensitivity:

Handlebars.js has a context-sensitive template evaluation, which means that variables within templates are looked up and resolved within the current data context. This makes it easier to work with complex nested data structures as the template can automatically traverse the data hierarchy. In contrast, Mustache treats variables as strict matches, and if the variable does not exist in the current context, it will not be resolved.

3. Conditional Rendering:

Handlebars.js offers more advanced conditional rendering capabilities compared to Mustache. It provides if-else and unless statements, allowing developers to conditionally render content based on the data values. Mustache, on the other hand, only supports truthy and falsy checks, making it less flexible for complex conditional logic.

4. Customization and Extensibility:

Handlebars.js allows developers to extend the templating language by creating custom helpers and partials. This makes it easier to customize and add functionality to templates based on specific requirements. Mustache, however, is designed to be a minimalistic and lightweight templating language, limiting the extent of customization and extensibility.

5. White Space Handling:

Handlebars.js has built-in white space handling, which means that leading and trailing white spaces are automatically trimmed from template variables and block expressions. This can be useful for maintaining consistent formatting in HTML output. Mustache, on the other hand, does not perform any automatic white space trimming, requiring developers to manually handle white space issues if needed.

6. Language Support:

Handlebars.js supports additional programming languages such as JavaScript, Java, and Ruby, providing flexibility to developers working in different language ecosystems. Mustache, on the other hand, focuses primarily on JavaScript and is less compatible with other programming languages.

In summary, Handlebars.js offers more expressive features, context sensitivity, advanced conditional rendering, customization options, built-in white space handling, and broader language support compared to Mustache. However, Mustache is simpler and more lightweight, making it a good choice for projects that require minimalistic templating.

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Advice on Mustache, Handlebars.js

Asad

Software Engineer at Lisec Automation

Jun 15, 2020

Needs adviceon

.NET

Handlebars.js

@All: I am searching for the best template engine for .NET. I started looking into several template engines, including the Dotliquid, Handlebars.js, Scriban, and Razorlight. I found handlebar a bit difficult to use when using the loops and condition because you need to register for helper first. DotLiquid and Scriban were easy to use and in Razorlight I did not find the example for loops.

Can you please suggest which template engine is best suited for the use of conditional/list and looping and why? Or if anybody could provide me a resource or link where I can compare which is best?

Thanks In Advance

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Comments

Detailed Comparison

Mustache	Handlebars.js
Mustache is a logic-less template syntax. It can be used for HTML, config files, source code - anything. It works by expanding tags in a template using values provided in a hash or object. We call it "logic-less" because there are no if statements, else clauses, or for loops. Instead there are only tags. Some tags are replaced with a value, some nothing, and others a series of values.	Handlebars.js is an extension to the Mustache templating language created by Chris Wanstrath. Handlebars.js and Mustache are both logicless templating languages that keep the view and the code separated like we all know they should be.
Statistics
GitHub Stars 16.7K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 2.4K	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 2.4K	Stacks 8.3K
Followers 415	Followers 3.2K
Votes 50	Votes 308
Pros & Cons
Pros 29 Dead simple templating 12 Open source 8 Small 1 Support in lots of languages	Pros 106 Simple 76 Great templating language 50 Open source 36 Logicless 20 Integrates well into any codebase

What are some alternatives to Mustache, Handlebars.js?

TypeScript

TypeScript is a language for application-scale JavaScript development. It's a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript.

Pug

This project was formerly known as "Jade." Pug is a high performance template engine heavily influenced by Haml and implemented with JavaScript for Node.js and browsers.

Slim Lang

Slim is a template language whose goal is to reduce the view syntax to the essential parts without becoming cryptic. It started as an exercise to see how much could be removed from a standard html template (<, >, closing tags, etc...). As more people took an interest in Slim, the functionality grew and so did the flexibility of the syntax.

RactiveJS

Ractive was originally created at theguardian.com to produce news applications. Ractive takes your Mustache templates and transforms them into a lightweight representation of the DOM – then when your data changes, it intelligently updates the real DOM.

EJS

It is a simple templating language that lets you generate HTML markup with plain JavaScript. No religiousness about how to organize things. No reinvention of iteration and control-flow. It's just plain JavaScript.

Jinja

It is a full featured template engine for Python. It has full unicode support, an optional integrated sandboxed execution environment, widely used and BSD licensed.

Twig

It is a modern template engine for PHP. It is flexible, fast, and secure. Its syntax originates from Jinja and Django templates.

Nunjucks

Rich Powerful language with block inheritance, autoescaping, macros, asynchronous control, and more. Heavily inspired by jinja2. It supports all modern browsers.

Hogan.js

Hogan.js is a 3.4k JS templating engine developed at Twitter. Use it as a part of your asset packager to compile templates ahead of time or include it in your browser to handle dynamic templates.

Jsonnet

It is a data templating language for app and tool developers. It is a powerful DSL for elegant description of JSON data.

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