What are the differences between Mustache js and Handlebars js

Question

Major differences I ve seen are    Handlebars adds  if   unless   with  and  each Handlebars adds helpers Handlebars templates are compiled  Mustache can be too  Handlebars supports paths Allows use of   this   in blocks  which outputs the current item s string value  Handlebars SafeString    and maybe some other methods  Handlebars is 2 to 7 times faster Mustache supports inverted sections  i e  if  x         Please correct me if I m wrong with the above    Are there any other major differences I am missing

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NOTE  This answer is outdated  It was true at the time it was posted  but no longer is   Mustache has interpreters in many languages  while Handlebars is Javascript only

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In addition to using  this  for handlebars  and the nested variable within variable block for mustache  you can also use the nested dot in a block for mustache          variable   lt span class  text  gt       lt  span gt    variable

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I feel that one of the mentioned cons for  Handlebars  isnt  really valid anymore   Handlebars java now allows us to share the same template languages for both client and server which is a big win for large projects with 1000  components that require serverside rendering for SEO  Take a look at https   github com jknack handlebars java

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Mustache pros    Very popular choice with a large  active community  Server side support in many languages  including Java  Logic-less templates do a great job of forcing you to separate presentation from logic  Clean syntax leads to templates that are easy to build  read  and maintain    Mustache cons    A little too logic-less  basic tasks  e g  label alternate rows with different CSS classes  are difficult  View logic is often pushed back to the server or implemented as a  lambda   callable function   For lambdas to work on client and server  you must write them in JavaScript    Handlebars pros    Logic-less templates do a great job of forcing you to separate presentation from logic  Clean syntax leads to templates that are easy to build  read  and maintain  Compiled rather than interpreted templates  Better support for paths than mustache  ie  reaching deep into a context object   Better support for global helpers than mustache    Handlebars cons    Requires server-side JavaScript to render on the server    Source  The client-side templating throwdown  mustache  handlebars  dust js  and more

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One subtle but significant difference is in the way the two libraries approach scope  Mustache will fall back to parent scope if it can t find a variable within the current context  Handlebars will return a blank string   This is barely mentioned in the GitHub README  where there s one line for it      Handlebars deviates from Mustache slightly in that it does not perform recursive lookup by default    However  as noted there  there is a flag to make Handlebars behave in the same way as Mustache -- but it affects performance   This has an effect on the way you can use   variables as conditionals   For example in Mustache you can do this      variable   lt span class  text  gt   variable   lt  span gt    variable     It basically means  if variable exists and is truthy  print a span with the variable in it   But in Handlebars  you would either have to    use   this   instead use a parent path  i e        variable   to get back out to relevant scope define a child variable value within the parent variable object   More details on this  if you want them  here

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Another difference between them is the size of the file    Mustache js has 9kb  Handlebars js has 86kb  or 18kb if using precompiled templates    To see the performance benefits of Handlebars js we must use precompiled templates   Source  An Overview of JavaScript Templating Engines

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You ve pretty much nailed it  however Mustache templates can also be compiled   Mustache is missing helpers and the more advanced blocks because it strives to be logicless   Handlebars  custom helpers can be very useful  but often end up introducing logic into your templates   Mustache has many different compilers  JavaScript  Ruby  Python  C  etc    Handlebars began in JavaScript  now there are projects like django-handlebars  handlebars java  handlebars-ruby  lightncandy  PHP   and handlebars-objc

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One more subtle difference is the treatment of falsy values in    property        property   blocks  Most mustache implementations will just obey JS falsiness here  not rendering the block if property is    or  0    Handlebars will render the block for    and 0  but not other falsy values  This can cause some trouble when migrating templates

[handlebars.js] What are the differences between Mustache.js and Handlebars.js?

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