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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Templating Languages & Extensions
  4. Templating Languages And Extensions
  5. Liquid vs Smarty

Liquid vs Smarty

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Liquid
Liquid
Stacks261
Followers126
Votes0
GitHub Stars11.5K
Forks1.5K
Smarty
Smarty
Stacks3.2K
Followers71
Votes0

Liquid vs Smarty: What are the differences?

# Introduction
This Markdown code highlights the key differences between Liquid and Smarty templating languages.

1. **Syntax**: Liquid uses curly braces {{ }} to output variables and block tags, while Smarty uses curly braces {} for variables and block tags {% %}.
2. **Extensibility**: Liquid has limited support for custom functions and filters, while Smarty provides a robust plugin system for extending functionality.
3. **Code Readability**: Liquid's syntax is more human-readable and clear, making it easier for non-developers to understand, whereas Smarty's syntax can be more complex and difficult to grasp for beginners.
4. **Error Handling**: Liquid provides detailed error messages that are easier to troubleshoot, while Smarty's error messages can be vague and less helpful for debugging.
5. **Performance**: Liquid is generally faster and more lightweight compared to Smarty, making it a better choice for projects with high performance requirements.
6. **Community Support**: Liquid has a smaller but growing community with limited resources, while Smarty has been around longer and has a larger, more established community with extensive documentation and resources.

In Summary, Liquid and Smarty have notable differences in syntax, extensibility, code readability, error handling, performance, and community support.

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Advice on Liquid, Smarty

Asad
Asad

Software Engineer at Lisec Automation

Jun 15, 2020

Needs adviceon.NET.NETHandlebars.jsHandlebars.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
Liquid
Smarty
Smarty

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.

Facilitating the separation of presentation (HTML/CSS) from application logic. This implies that PHP code is application logic, and is separated from the presentation

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
-
Statistics
GitHub Stars
11.5K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
1.5K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
261
Stacks
3.2K
Followers
126
Followers
71
Votes
0
Votes
0
Integrations
VTEX
VTEX
Zendesk
Zendesk
Voog
Voog
Drip
Drip
Ruby
Ruby
Jekyll
Jekyll
Fedora
Fedora
Locomotive CMS
Locomotive CMS
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Liquid, Smarty?

TypeScript

TypeScript

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

Pug

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

Twig

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

Nunjucks

Nunjucks

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

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