Apache FreeMarker vs Quarkus

Overview

Apache FreeMarker

Stacks508

Followers74

Votes0

GitHub Stars1.1K

Forks270

Quarkus

Stacks311

Followers382

Votes80

GitHub Stars15.2K

Forks3.0K

Apache FreeMarker vs Quarkus: What are the differences?

Introduction: In the world of web development, Apache FreeMarker and Quarkus are two popular tools that serve different purposes. Understanding the key differences between them can help developers make informed decisions on which tool to use for their projects.

1. Templating Engine vs. Java Framework: Apache FreeMarker is primarily a templating engine used for generating text output, such as HTML web pages. On the other hand, Quarkus is a Java framework designed for creating microservices and cloud-native applications. While FreeMarker focuses on rendering data in templates, Quarkus provides a platform for developing and running Java applications.

2. Purpose and Use Case: Apache FreeMarker is commonly used in web application development for separating the presentation layer from the business logic. It allows developers to create dynamic templates that can be filled with data from Java objects. Quarkus, on the other hand, is aimed at streamlining the development of cloud-native applications by offering fast boot times, low memory consumption, and native compilation support. It is well-suited for building microservices that can scale efficiently.

3. Language Compatibility: FreeMarker utilizes its own template language that is specifically designed for generating textual content. While it supports Java integration, the primary focus is on providing a simple and flexible syntax for building templates. Quarkus, being a Java framework, is fully compatible with the Java programming language and ecosystem. Developers can leverage their knowledge of Java to build applications using Quarkus without the need to learn a new template language.

4. Runtime Environment: When using Apache FreeMarker, the templates are processed during the runtime of the web application, where the engine generates the final output based on the data provided. In contrast, Quarkus applications are compiled ahead of time, allowing for faster startup times and improved performance. The native image compilation feature of Quarkus further enhances efficiency by optimizing the application for specific platforms.

5. Deployment and Scalability: Deploying applications built with Apache FreeMarker typically involves setting up a web server or servlet container to serve the generated pages. In the case of Quarkus, the applications can be packaged as standalone executables or native images, reducing the dependencies on external servers. This approach simplifies deployment and improves scalability, making it easier to manage and scale applications in cloud environments.

6. Community Support and Ecosystem: Apache FreeMarker has a dedicated community of users and contributors who actively maintain the project and provide support for developers. However, the ecosystem around Quarkus is more extensive, with a wide range of extensions, plugins, and integrations available to enhance the functionality of the framework. This robust ecosystem enables developers to leverage a variety of tools and services when building applications with Quarkus.

In Summary, the key differences between Apache FreeMarker and Quarkus lie in their core functions, use cases, language compatibility, runtime environment, deployment methods, and community support. These distinctions guide developers in choosing the right tool for their specific needs and requirements in web development and application deployment.

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Detailed Comparison

Apache FreeMarker	Quarkus
It is a "template engine"; a generic tool to generate text output (anything from HTML to auto generated source code) based on templates. It's a Java package, a class library for Java programmers.	It tailors your application for GraalVM and HotSpot. Amazingly fast boot time, incredibly low RSS memory (not just heap size!) offering near instant scale up and high density memory utilization in container orchestration platforms like Kubernetes. We use a technique we call compile time boot.
Powerful template language;Multipurpose and lightweight;Internationalization/localization-aware;XML processing capabilities;Versatile data-model	CONTAINER FIRST; UNIFIES IMPERATIVE AND REACTIVE; BEST OF BREED LIBRARIES AND STANDARDS
Statistics
GitHub Stars 1.1K	GitHub Stars 15.2K
GitHub Forks 270	GitHub Forks 3.0K
Stacks 508	Stacks 311
Followers 74	Followers 382
Votes 0	Votes 80
Pros & Cons
No community feedback yet	Pros 13 Open source 13 Fast startup 11 Low memory footprint 11 Produce native code 10 Hot Reload Cons 2 Boilerplate code when using Reflection
Integrations
Java Vim IntelliJ IDEA Eclipse NetBeans IDE TextMate Emacs	Kubernetes Apache Camel Hibernate Netty

What are some alternatives to Apache FreeMarker, Quarkus?

MyBatis

It is a first class persistence framework with support for custom SQL, stored procedures and advanced mappings. It eliminates almost all of the JDBC code and manual setting of parameters and retrieval of results. It can use simple XML or Annotations for configuration and map primitives, Map interfaces and Java POJOs (Plain Old Java Objects) to database records.

guava

The Guava project contains several of Google's core libraries that we rely on in our Java-based projects: collections, caching, primitives support, concurrency libraries, common annotations, string processing, I/O, and so forth.

Thymeleaf

It is a modern server-side Java template engine for both web and standalone environments. It is aimed at creating elegant web code while adding powerful features and retaining prototyping abilities.

JSF

It is used for building component-based user interfaces for web applications and was formalized as a standard through the Java Community

JavaMelody

It is used to monitor Java or Java EE application servers in QA and production environments. It is not a tool to simulate requests from users, it is a tool to measure and calculate statistics on real operation of an application depending on the usage of the application by users. It is mainly based on statistics of requests and on evolution charts.

RxJava

A library for composing asynchronous and event-based programs by using observable sequences for the Java VM.

MapStruct

It is a code generator that greatly simplifies the implementation of mappings between Java bean types based on a convention over configuration approach. The generated mapping code uses plain method invocations and thus is fast, type-safe and easy to understand.

Java 8

It is a revolutionary release of the world’s no 1 development platform. It includes a huge upgrade to the Java programming model and a coordinated evolution of the JVM, Java language, and libraries. Java 8 includes features for productivity, ease of use, improved polyglot programming, security and improved performance.

Jackson

It is a suite of data-processing tools for Java (and the JVM platform), including the flagship streaming JSON parser / generator library, matching data-binding library (POJOs to and from JSON) and additional data format modules to process data encoded in Avro, BSON, CBOR, CSV, Smile, (Java) Properties, Protobuf, XML or YAML; and even the large set of data format modules to support data types of widely used data types such as Guava, Joda.

Project Reactor

It is a fourth-generation Reactive library for building non-blocking applications on the JVM based on the Reactive Streams Specification. It is a fully non-blocking foundation with efficient demand management. It directly interacts with Java functional API, Completable Future, Stream and Duration.