Liquid vs doT.js

Overview

Liquid

Stacks261

Followers126

Votes0

GitHub Stars11.5K

Forks1.5K

doT.js

Stacks6

Followers19

Votes0

GitHub Stars5.0K

Forks1.0K

Liquid vs doT.js: What are the differences?

Introduction

Liquid and doT.js are both templating languages that are used to generate dynamic content in web applications. While they share some similarities, there are several key differences between Liquid and doT.js. In the following paragraphs, we will explore and highlight six major differences between these two templating languages.

Syntax and Usage: Liquid uses a simple and intuitive syntax that is easy to read and write. It is mainly used in platforms such as Shopify and Jekyll for creating dynamic webpages. On the other hand, doT.js follows a more JavaScript-like syntax and is primarily used as a client-side templating engine.
Conditionals and Loops: Liquid provides a limited set of conditionals and loop constructs, such as if, unless, for, and cycle. It also allows the use of filters to modify the output. Conversely, doT.js offers a wider range of conditional and loop expressions, including if, else, else if, switch, and custom-defined functions, making it more flexible and powerful in handling complex logic scenarios.
Partial Rendering: Liquid supports partial rendering, where reusable sections of a webpage can be separated into smaller templates and included in multiple locations. This allows for better code organization and reusability. In contrast, doT.js does not have native support for partial rendering. Developers need to manually implement their own logic to achieve similar functionality.
Customization and Extensibility: Liquid provides a solid foundation for basic template rendering but has limited customization options. It can be extended with custom filters and tags, but the options are relatively restricted. doT.js, on the other hand, offers a more extensible framework, allowing developers to easily create custom functions, delimiters, and other features to suit their specific needs.
Performance and Efficiency: Liquid is known for its performance and efficiency, as it focuses on simplicity and reliability. It includes various optimizations, such as caching and memoization, to improve rendering speed. doT.js, being a client-side templating engine, relies on the client's JavaScript engine to process and execute the templates, which can introduce additional processing overhead and may affect performance in certain scenarios.
Integration with JavaScript: Liquid has limited integration capabilities with JavaScript, as it was designed to be used mainly in server-side applications. It does not support direct execution of JavaScript code within templates. In contrast, doT.js seamlessly integrates with JavaScript, allowing inline JavaScript expressions, accessing JavaScript variables/objects, and even executing custom JavaScript functions directly within the templates.

In summary, Liquid and doT.js differ in terms of their syntax, usage, conditional and loop constructs, support for partial rendering, customization options, performance characteristics, and integration with JavaScript. These differences make each templating language suitable for specific use cases and environments.

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Advice on Liquid, doT.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

Liquid	doT.js
It is an open-source template language written in Ruby. It is the backbone of Shopify themes and is used to load dynamic content on storefronts. It is safe, customer facing template language for flexible web apps.	It is a fastest and concise javascript template engine for Node.js and browsers. It was created in search of the fastest and concise JavaScript templating function with emphasis on performance under V8 and Node.js. It shows great performance for both Node.js and browsers.
Render templates directly from the database;Smarty (PHP) style template engines;Template engine which does HTML just as well as emails;Allow your users to edit the appearance of your application but don't want them to run insecure code on your server	No dependencies, 120 loc; Extremely fast; Custom delimiters; Runtime evaluation; Runtime interpolation; Compile-time evaluation
Statistics
GitHub Stars 11.5K	GitHub Stars 5.0K
GitHub Forks 1.5K	GitHub Forks 1.0K
Stacks 261	Stacks 6
Followers 126	Followers 19
Votes 0	Votes 0
Integrations
VTEX Zendesk Voog Drip Ruby Jekyll Fedora Locomotive CMS	gulp Node.js JavaScript Google Chrome

What are some alternatives to Liquid, doT.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.

Handlebars.js

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.

Mustache

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.

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.

Related Comparisons

Liquid vs doT.js: What are the differences?

Introduction

Syntax and Usage: Liquid uses a simple and intuitive syntax that is easy to read and write. It is mainly used in platforms such as Shopify and Jekyll for creating dynamic webpages. On the other hand, doT.js follows a more JavaScript-like syntax and is primarily used as a client-side templating engine.
Conditionals and Loops: Liquid provides a limited set of conditionals and loop constructs, such as if, unless, for, and cycle. It also allows the use of filters to modify the output. Conversely, doT.js offers a wider range of conditional and loop expressions, including if, else, else if, switch, and custom-defined functions, making it more flexible and powerful in handling complex logic scenarios.
Partial Rendering: Liquid supports partial rendering, where reusable sections of a webpage can be separated into smaller templates and included in multiple locations. This allows for better code organization and reusability. In contrast, doT.js does not have native support for partial rendering. Developers need to manually implement their own logic to achieve similar functionality.
Customization and Extensibility: Liquid provides a solid foundation for basic template rendering but has limited customization options. It can be extended with custom filters and tags, but the options are relatively restricted. doT.js, on the other hand, offers a more extensible framework, allowing developers to easily create custom functions, delimiters, and other features to suit their specific needs.
Performance and Efficiency: Liquid is known for its performance and efficiency, as it focuses on simplicity and reliability. It includes various optimizations, such as caching and memoization, to improve rendering speed. doT.js, being a client-side templating engine, relies on the client's JavaScript engine to process and execute the templates, which can introduce additional processing overhead and may affect performance in certain scenarios.
Integration with JavaScript: Liquid has limited integration capabilities with JavaScript, as it was designed to be used mainly in server-side applications. It does not support direct execution of JavaScript code within templates. In contrast, doT.js seamlessly integrates with JavaScript, allowing inline JavaScript expressions, accessing JavaScript variables/objects, and even executing custom JavaScript functions directly within the templates.

Liquid vs doT.js

Overview

Liquid vs doT.js: What are the differences?