Benchmark: mustache vs handlebars rendering performance

HTML Preparation code:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/handlebars@4.7.7/dist/handlebars.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mustache@4.2.0/mustache.min.js"></script>

Script Preparation code:

var template = "<strong>This is a slightly more complicated {{thing}}.</strong>.\n{{! Just ignore this business. }}\nCheck this out:\n{{#hasThings}}\n<ul>\n{{#things}}\n<li class={{className}}>{{word}}</li>\n{{/things}}</ul>.\n{{/hasThings}}\n{{^hasThings}}\n\n<small>Nothing to check out...</small>\n{{/hasThings}}";

var context = {
  thing: function() {
    return "blah";
  },
  things: [
    {"className": "one", word: "@fat"},
    {"className": "two", word: "@dhg"},
    {"className": "three", word:"@sayrer"}
  ],
  hasThings: true
};

Mustache.parse(template);
var handlebarsRenderer = Handlebars.compile(template);

Tests:

Handlebars
handlebarsRenderer(context);
Mustache
Mustache.render(template, context);

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Handlebars
Mustache

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: one year ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 131 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Handlebars	442462.7 Ops/sec
Mustache	698881.4 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated one year ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

**What is being tested?**

The benchmark tests the performance of two popular templating engines for JavaScript: Mustache and Handlebars.

**Options compared**

In this benchmark, two options are being compared:

1. **Mustache**: The first option uses the Mustache library to render the template with a given context.
2. **Handlebars**: The second option uses the Handlebars library to render the template with a given context.

**Pros and Cons of each approach:**

* **Mustache:**
	+ Pros:
		- Smaller JavaScript file size (~20KB) compared to Handlebars
		- Simpler syntax, which might be easier to learn and use for some developers
	+ Cons:
		- Fewer features and a smaller community compared to Handlebars
* **Handlebars:**
	+ Pros:
		- More features and a larger community, which can lead to more plugins and integrations
		- Easier to extend with custom logic using the `{{#if}}`, `{{!if}}`, and other syntaxes
	+ Cons:
		- Larger JavaScript file size (~50KB) compared to Mustache

**Library: Mustache**

Mustache is a lightweight, flexible templating engine that allows you to create HTML templates with ease. It's particularly useful for creating dynamic content, such as:

* User-friendly forms and surveys
* Data-driven reports and dashboards
* Customizable UI components

In the benchmark, Mustache parses the template string and renders it using the provided context.

**Library: Handlebars**

Handlebars is a popular templating engine that extends the Mustache syntax with additional features. It's widely used in web development for creating:

* Complex dynamic layouts
* Reusable UI components
* Data-driven visualizations

In the benchmark, Handlebars compiles the template string and renders it using the provided context.

**Special JavaScript feature: None**

There are no special JavaScript features or syntaxes being tested in this benchmark. The focus is solely on comparing the performance of the two templating engines.

**Other alternatives**

If you're looking for other templating engine options, here are a few popular ones:

* **Pug**: A fast and lightweight templating engine that compiles to plain JavaScript.
* **EJS**: A Node.js-specific templating engine that uses ERB syntax.
* **JSP**: A Java-based templating engine that's widely used in enterprise applications.

Each of these alternatives has its own strengths and weaknesses, and the choice ultimately depends on your specific use case and requirements.

Related benchmarks:

mustache vs handlebars rendering performance (version: 2)

nya nya nya

Comparing performance of: Handlebars vs Mustache

Created: 4 years ago by: Registered User

Jump to the latest result

Handlebars

Mustache

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated one year ago):