Espresso.js vs CanJS: What are the differences?

Developers describe Espresso.js as "React Meets Backbone for a Minimal MVC". Espresso.js is a tiny MVC framework inspired by Backbone and React with a focus on simplicity and speed. We've aimed to bring the ideas of unidirectional data flow of Flux to a simple, Backbone-style library. On the other hand, CanJS is detailed as "Build CRUD apps in fewer lines of code". CanJS is an evolving and improving set of client-side JavaScript architectural libraries that balances innovation and stability. It targets experienced developers building complex applications with long futures ahead of them.

Espresso.js and CanJS can be primarily classified as "Javascript MVC Frameworks" tools.

Some of the features offered by Espresso.js are:

• tiny, less than 500 lines and 3kb gzipped
• zero dependencies
• performance and memory focused

On the other hand, CanJS provides the following key features:

• Community Driven Development
• Tree-shakeable JavaScript Module Builds
• Simple model mixins

Espresso.js and CanJS are both open source tools. CanJS with 1.76K GitHub stars and 411 forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than Espresso.js with 522 GitHub stars and 20 GitHub forks.