EJS vs Smarty

Overview

EJS

Stacks522

Followers359

Votes18

GitHub Stars8.0K

Forks859

Smarty

Stacks3.2K

Followers71

Votes0

EJS vs Smarty: What are the differences?

Syntax: The key difference between EJS and Smarty lies in their syntax. EJS uses JavaScript-like syntax embedded within HTML whereas Smarty uses its own template language with specific delimiters and variable handling mechanisms.
Language Support: EJS mainly supports JavaScript and HTML while Smarty primarily supports PHP. This difference impacts the ability to integrate with different backend technologies.
Expressiveness: EJS provides more flexibility and expressiveness due to its close integration with JavaScript, allowing for more dynamic and complex operations. In contrast, Smarty's syntax limitations may restrict the level of customization and functionality that can be achieved.
Performance: EJS is known for its slightly better performance compared to Smarty. This can be attributed to the way EJS compiles templates and renders them in the client's browser.
Learning Curve: EJS might be easier for developers familiar with JavaScript and HTML, whereas Smarty's specific template language could present a steeper learning curve for those without prior knowledge of PHP or similar languages.
Community Support and Documentation: EJS has a larger and more active community with extensive documentation and resources available. On the other hand, Smarty's community and documentation may not be as robust, affecting the ease of troubleshooting and finding solutions to problems.

In Summary, the key differences between EJS and Smarty lie in syntax, language support, expressiveness, performance, learning curve, and community support/documentation.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Detailed Comparison

EJS	Smarty
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.	Facilitating the separation of presentation (HTML/CSS) from application logic. This implies that PHP code is application logic, and is separated from the presentation
Template caching and partials;Intelligent error handling with line numbers	-
Statistics
GitHub Stars 8.0K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 859	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 522	Stacks 3.2K
Followers 359	Followers 71
Votes 18	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 6 For a beginner it's just plain javascript code 6 It'a easy to understand the concept behind it 3 Quick for templating UI project 3 You almost know how to use it from start	No community feedback yet

What are some alternatives to EJS, Smarty?

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.

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.

Related Comparisons

EJS vs Smarty: What are the differences?

Syntax: The key difference between EJS and Smarty lies in their syntax. EJS uses JavaScript-like syntax embedded within HTML whereas Smarty uses its own template language with specific delimiters and variable handling mechanisms.
Language Support: EJS mainly supports JavaScript and HTML while Smarty primarily supports PHP. This difference impacts the ability to integrate with different backend technologies.
Expressiveness: EJS provides more flexibility and expressiveness due to its close integration with JavaScript, allowing for more dynamic and complex operations. In contrast, Smarty's syntax limitations may restrict the level of customization and functionality that can be achieved.
Performance: EJS is known for its slightly better performance compared to Smarty. This can be attributed to the way EJS compiles templates and renders them in the client's browser.
Learning Curve: EJS might be easier for developers familiar with JavaScript and HTML, whereas Smarty's specific template language could present a steeper learning curve for those without prior knowledge of PHP or similar languages.
Community Support and Documentation: EJS has a larger and more active community with extensive documentation and resources available. On the other hand, Smarty's community and documentation may not be as robust, affecting the ease of troubleshooting and finding solutions to problems.

In Summary, the key differences between EJS and Smarty lie in syntax, language support, expressiveness, performance, learning curve, and community support/documentation.

EJS vs Smarty

Overview