Apache FreeMarker vs Thymeleaf

Overview

Thymeleaf

Stacks212

Followers296

Votes4

Apache FreeMarker

Stacks508

Followers74

Votes0

GitHub Stars1.1K

Forks270

Apache FreeMarker vs Thymeleaf: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will discuss the key differences between Apache FreeMarker and Thymeleaf, two popular template engines used for web development.

Syntax: Apache FreeMarker uses a syntax similar to HTML, with template files having the '.ftl' extension. On the other hand, Thymeleaf uses a syntax that is closer to XML, with template files having the '.html' extension. This syntax difference makes the code more readable and easier to understand for developers who are familiar with HTML or XML.
Integration: FreeMarker can be integrated with multiple programming languages such as Java, JavaScript, and Python. It provides libraries and APIs to facilitate integration with these languages. Thymeleaf, on the other hand, is mainly designed for Java-based web applications and provides seamless integration with the Spring Framework.
Processing: FreeMarker templates are processed server-side, meaning that the processing of these templates occurs on the server before the resulting HTML is sent to the client's browser. Thymeleaf templates, on the other hand, can be processed both server-side and client-side, allowing for dynamic updating of the page without a full page reload.
Error Handling: FreeMarker provides detailed error messages and stack traces when an error occurs, making it easier to debug and identify issues in the templates. Thymeleaf also provides error messages, but they may not be as detailed as FreeMarker in some cases.
Extensibility: FreeMarker allows developers to create custom directives and functions, which can be used to extend the functionality of the template engine. Thymeleaf, on the other hand, provides a rich set of built-in tags and attributes that cover most common use cases, but it may require more effort to implement custom functionality.
Community and Documentation: FreeMarker has been around for a longer time and has a larger community, resulting in extensive documentation, tutorials, and resources available online. Thymeleaf, although gaining popularity, may have a comparatively smaller community and slightly fewer resources available.

In summary, Apache FreeMarker and Thymeleaf differ in their syntax, integration capabilities, processing approaches, error handling, extensibility options, and community support.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Detailed Comparison

Thymeleaf	Apache FreeMarker
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.	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.
-	Powerful template language;Multipurpose and lightweight;Internationalization/localization-aware;XML processing capabilities;Versatile data-model
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 1.1K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 270
Stacks 212	Stacks 508
Followers 296	Followers 74
Votes 4	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 4 Its delicous	No community feedback yet
Integrations
No integrations available	Java Vim IntelliJ IDEA Eclipse NetBeans IDE TextMate Emacs

What are some alternatives to Thymeleaf, Apache FreeMarker?

Quarkus

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.

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.

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.

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Apache FreeMarker vs Thymeleaf: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will discuss the key differences between Apache FreeMarker and Thymeleaf, two popular template engines used for web development.

Syntax: Apache FreeMarker uses a syntax similar to HTML, with template files having the '.ftl' extension. On the other hand, Thymeleaf uses a syntax that is closer to XML, with template files having the '.html' extension. This syntax difference makes the code more readable and easier to understand for developers who are familiar with HTML or XML.
Integration: FreeMarker can be integrated with multiple programming languages such as Java, JavaScript, and Python. It provides libraries and APIs to facilitate integration with these languages. Thymeleaf, on the other hand, is mainly designed for Java-based web applications and provides seamless integration with the Spring Framework.
Processing: FreeMarker templates are processed server-side, meaning that the processing of these templates occurs on the server before the resulting HTML is sent to the client's browser. Thymeleaf templates, on the other hand, can be processed both server-side and client-side, allowing for dynamic updating of the page without a full page reload.
Error Handling: FreeMarker provides detailed error messages and stack traces when an error occurs, making it easier to debug and identify issues in the templates. Thymeleaf also provides error messages, but they may not be as detailed as FreeMarker in some cases.
Extensibility: FreeMarker allows developers to create custom directives and functions, which can be used to extend the functionality of the template engine. Thymeleaf, on the other hand, provides a rich set of built-in tags and attributes that cover most common use cases, but it may require more effort to implement custom functionality.
Community and Documentation: FreeMarker has been around for a longer time and has a larger community, resulting in extensive documentation, tutorials, and resources available online. Thymeleaf, although gaining popularity, may have a comparatively smaller community and slightly fewer resources available.

In summary, Apache FreeMarker and Thymeleaf differ in their syntax, integration capabilities, processing approaches, error handling, extensibility options, and community support.