Before taking a look at the best template engines for JavaScript, first let us talk about what a template engine is. In simple terms, a template engine allows you to utilize static template files in your projects or applications. The template engine then replaces variables and instances declared in a template file with actual values at runtime, and convert the template into an HTML file sent to the client.
A naïve programmer writes JavaScript code into the HTML file, which then becomes cumbersome to read, unmanageable to handle, very hard to debug and fix bugs in the bigger applications. In this article, I will mention the best template engines for JavaScript. I will not rate them individually, as all of the engines have some pros and cons relative to others. However, all of the below-mentioned template engines are considered best in JS Community.
Pug (erstwhile Jade)
Pug, previously known as Jade, is a turbo performance template engine designed with JavaScript for Node.js in particular and browsers in general. On GitHub, it has over 16000 stars, which shows how much it is valuable for the JavaScript programmers.
Pug lets you embed regular JavaScript code directly within the template. Moreover, you can reuse Pug templates in Python, Ruby, SCALA and Java. In order to install Pug, go to the following link: https://pugjs.org/api/getting-started.html. Installation guide is self-explanatory there.
Handlebars
Handlebars, as described by its official website, provides the power to let you build semantic templates effectively with no hustle and bustle. Handlebars is also compatible with Mustache templates. You can also replace Mustache with Handlebars and continue using your current templates.
I shall talk about Mustache next, as it also one of the best template engines. You can download and install Handlebars by going to the following link: https://handlebarsjs.com . The entire installation guide is given step-by-step there.
Mustache:
Mustache loves to call itself “logic-less” template engine because there are no cumbersome and confusing conditional if and then statements or looping constructs embedded within a Mustache template. Looping and conditionals can be done using processing lists, section tags, and lambdas. Mustache has all about tags. Few tags are replaced with a value, few with nothing, and others with a list or series of values.
Mustache like Pug is implemented in different languages: Ruby, JavaScript, Python, PHP, Objective-C, Java, .NET, Go, SCALA, Perl, C++, Android etc. The JavaScript version and implementation of Mustache is referred as “Mustache.js”. For more details about Mustache, go to https://mustache.github.io/ and find the amazing functionality of this template engine.
Summary:
In a nutshell, the above-mentioned templates are not only easy to use, but also very helpful for the programmers, especially the JavaScript programmers. Do try them out! You would LOVE them!
