Is there a template engine for Node.js?

Question

I'm experimenting with building an entire web application using Node.js. Is there a template engine similar to (for example) the Django template engine or the like that at least allows you to extend base templates?

I just found out that JavaScript V8 engine is faster than Ruby, PHP, and Python. Amazingly fast for a dynamic language. Slower than Java and C#, though. — Nosredna, Nov 24 '09 at 19:10
@Nosredna: How can Java possibly be faster than anything?! ;) — Daniel Sloof, Sep 08 '10 at 07:06
@Daniel Java is actually pretty fast these days, beating everything but Ada, C and C++ in Debian's Shootout benchmarks. — Mentalikryst, Oct 19 '10 at 20:49
Anyone who doesn't care about syntax, productivity and anything else but performance, should be using [Raphters](https://github.com/DanielWaterworth/raphters) (web framework for C) — Pablo B., Apr 17 '11 at 00:27
node.js is not about the language. It's totally about the design and the way js handles IO, which is brilliant. You could make ruby web frameworks run fast if you redesigned it's IO libraries. — julx, Apr 25 '11 at 20:11
If you really don't mind about the syntax or "beauty" of a language but performance only, I hear assembler is pretty fast ;) — arg20, Mar 10 '13 at 05:45
@arg20 You might find this answer interesting :) http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2684364/why-arent-programs-written-in-assembly-more-often/2685541#2685541 — toasted_flakes, May 11 '13 at 21:25
npm install templetize - Full syntax extensible engine, works like a charm! — Lex Podgorny, Feb 22 '14 at 03:12

score 166 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 09 '16 at 13:24

166

Check out the Node js modules wiki page. They have listed all the templating engines supporting node.js.

edited Sep 09 '16 at 13:24

tzi

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answered Sep 08 '10 at 06:44

RameshVel

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The page became deprecated you can find an alternative page on [Visionmedia's wiki](https://github.com/visionmedia/express/wiki) and [the chapter about templates](https://github.com/visionmedia/express/wiki#wiki-template-engines). – Thomas Potaire Mar 01 '14 at 01:44
@ThomasPotaire It became deprecated because they suggest to use npm search instead. – inf3rno Jun 12 '15 at 14:47

score 53 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 17 '09 at 18:56

53

You should be able to use mustache.js, if it doesn't work send me the issues and I'll get it fixed because I'm about to be using them in node.js anyway.

http://github.com/janl/mustache.js

I know that it works without a DOM because a bunch of CouchDB standalone apps are using it in a Spidermonkey view server.

answered Dec 17 '09 at 18:56

mikeal

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There is also a blog post about using Mustache and Underscore together with Node.js: http://boldr.net/create-a-web-app-with-node – MKroehnert Apr 25 '10 at 23:53
@MKroehnert the link is broken – yukashima huksay Feb 03 '19 at 06:04

score 40 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 02 '10 at 15:10

40

If you like haml, but want something even better check out http://jade-lang.com for node, I wrote haml.js as well :)

answered Jul 02 '10 at 15:10

tjholowaychuk

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Jade is pretty cool. I've just started using it, so can't speak to it's performance, but I like the syntax. And built-in support in Express is a plus. – broofa Nov 22 '10 at 13:41
3

the performance is sufficient, templates should be cached anyway. Plus remember to scale horizontally, not vertically, otherwise you might as well not use a template engine at all and just some functions / concats – tjholowaychuk Jan 28 '11 at 20:10

score 14 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 24 '09 at 05:56

14

There are new templating engines all the time.

underscore.js adds a lot of functional programming support to js, and has templating.

And just today I heard about this: http://github.com/SamuraiJack/Shotenjin-Joosed

answered Nov 24 '09 at 05:56

Nosredna

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Thumbs up for underscore.js. Awesome library, I use it both for my client side as well as node.js work. Their templating engine is based on John Resig's JS Micro Templating engine (http://ejohn.org/blog/javascript-micro-templating/) which I have used many times before. Afaik its your best option at this point when working with node.js. – Felix Geisendörfer Nov 28 '09 at 11:36
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Do any of these support inheritance? – Nick Retallack Jan 04 '10 at 05:55
1

@Nick jinjs seems to support inheritance, see the first line: https://github.com/ravelsoft/node-jinjs/blob/master/test/templates/test-extend.tpl – panchicore Sep 16 '11 at 14:11

score 13 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 03 '10 at 18:05

You should take a look at node-asyncEJS, which is explicitly designed to take the asynchronous nature of node.js into account. It even allows async code blocks inside of the template.

Here an example form the documentation:

<html>
  <head>
    <% ctx.hello = "World";  %>
    <title><%= "Hello " + ctx.hello %></title>
  </head>
  <body>

    <h1><%? setTimeout(function () { res.print("Async Header"); res.finish(); }, 2000)  %></h1>
    <p><%? setTimeout(function () { res.print("Body"); res.finish(); }, 1000)  %></p>

  </body>
</html>

score 7 · Answer 6 · edited May 23 '14 at 05:46

7

You can try beardless (it's inspired by weld/plates):

For example:

{ post:
  { title: "Next generation templating: Start shaving!"
  , text: "TL;DR You should really check out beardless!"
  , comments:
    [ {text: "Hey cool!"}
    , {text: "Really gotta check that out..."}  ]
  }
}

Your template:

<h1 data-template="post.title"></h1>
<p data-template="post.text"></p>
<div>
  <div data-template="post.comments" class="comment">
    <p data-template="post.comments.text"></p>
  </div>
</div>

Output:

<h1>Next generation templating: Start shaving!</h1>
<p>TL;DR You should really check out beardless!</p>
<div>
  <div class="comment">
    <p>Hey cool!</p>
  </div>
  <div class="comment">
    <p>Really gotta check that out...</p>
  </div>
</div>

edited May 23 '14 at 05:46

Ry-

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answered Oct 21 '12 at 10:43

carambolage

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Please be more descriptive in your answer about your code and the link you referred to. Refer:[How to Answer](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/how-to-answer) – askmish Oct 21 '12 at 15:39
Would be interesting, how to actually process the file or populate variables within Node – Julian F. Weinert Jun 13 '15 at 12:09

score 6 · Answer 7 · answered Jul 02 '12 at 10:09

6

I use Twig with Symfony and am now dabbling in node.js, so I'm looking at https://github.com/justjohn/twig.js and https://github.com/paularmstrong/swig, which you'll probably like if you use django.

answered Jul 02 '12 at 10:09

Tac Tacelosky

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TwigJS is kind of dead, GitHub says last commit was2years ago. Swig, on he other hand, is pretty acive. I'd go for Swig. – Darkhogg May 10 '13 at 08:21
**FYI**: As of [this commit on Jun 25th 2015](https://github.com/paularmstrong/swig/commit/20b20e72d6a3a0a73f5c322142aff555be5bd707), the [Swig github claims it is no longer being maintained](https://github.com/paularmstrong/swig/issues/628). That might change in the future, but as of now, it's something to consider. – radiovisual Aug 17 '15 at 12:39
[Nunjucks](https://mozilla.github.io/nunjucks/) has very similar syntax, for what it's worth. – mwcz May 15 '19 at 20:36

score 6 · Answer 8 · answered Mar 11 '10 at 00:59

6

I have done some work on a pretty complete port of the Django template language for Simon Willisons djangode project (Utilities functions for node.js that borrow some useful concepts from Django).

See the documentation here.

answered Mar 11 '10 at 00:59

AHM

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score 5 · Answer 9 · answered Nov 24 '09 at 05:52

5

If you're looking for a minimalist approach to templates, you can check out JSON Template.

A more full-featured alternative is EJS. It's a bit more similar to something you'd get from Django.

Your mileage may vary for each of these - they're designed for a browser Javascript environment, and not Node.js.

answered Nov 24 '09 at 05:52

ShZ

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It's not similar to Django's templates at all, for one Django's templates have *good* documentation. EJS is a struggle to get through and you'll end up reading its source code just to understand what's available to you. – Jan 20 '14 at 04:27

fe_lix_ · Answer 10 · 2013-05-30T07:58:30.983

WARNING : JinJs is not maintained anymore. It is still working but not compatible with the lastest version of express.

You could try using jinjs. It is a port of the Jinja, a very good Python templating system. You can install it with npm like this :

npm install jinjs

in template.tpl :

I say : "{{ sentence }}"

in your template.js :

jinjs = require('jinjs');
jinjs.registerExtension('.tpl');
tpl = require('./template');
str = tpl.render ({sentence : 'Hello, World!'});
console.log(str);

The output will be :

I say : "Hello, World!"

We are actively developing it, a good documentation should come pretty soon.

score 4 · Answer 11 · answered Aug 13 '10 at 20:48

haml is a good choice for node.js

http://github.com/creationix/haml-js

haml-js

!!! XML
!!! strict
%html{ xmlns: "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" }
  %head
    %title Sample haml template
  %body
    .profile
      .left.column
        #date= print_date()
        #address= current_user.address
      .right.column
        #email= current_user.email
        #bio= current_user.bio

html

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8' ?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Sample haml template
</title></head><body><div class="profile"><div class="left column"><div id="date">January 1, 2009
</div><div id="address">Richardson, TX
</div></div><div class="right column"><div id="email">tim@creationix.com
</div><div id="bio">Experienced software professional...
</div></div></div></body></html>

score 4 · Answer 12 · answered Mar 28 '11 at 21:47

4

I've heard good things about {dust} http://akdubya.github.com/dustjs/#dust

answered Mar 28 '11 at 21:47

triptych

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score 4 · Answer 13 · edited Oct 22 '11 at 18:27

4

Try "vash" - asp.net mvc like razor syntax for node.js

https://github.com/kirbysayshi/Vash

also checkout: http://haacked.com/archive/2011/01/06/razor-syntax-quick-reference.aspx

// sample
var tmpl = vash.compile('<hr/>@model.a,@model.b<hr/>');
var html = tmpl({"a": "hello", "b": "world"});
res.write(html);

edited Oct 22 '11 at 18:27

HoLyVieR

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answered Oct 18 '11 at 21:35

ramr

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Thanks for the Vash shoutout! – Andrew Apr 23 '12 at 17:59

score 3 · Answer 14 · answered Jul 09 '10 at 16:49

3

Google's Closure Templates is a natively-JavaScript templating system and a seemingly natural fit with NodeJS. Here are some instructions for integrating them.

answered Jul 09 '10 at 16:49

Adam Crossland

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score 2 · Answer 15 · answered Dec 05 '09 at 20:54

2

Did you try PURE ?
If you give it a try, feel free to post any trouble you may face at the forum

While it was primarly designed for the browser, it works well with Jaxer and Rhino.

I don't know node.js yet but if you can cache some JS and functions in memory, the speed should be even more impressive.

answered Dec 05 '09 at 20:54

Mic

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Node.js does not understand DOM... PURE use the DOM, but since it makes strings of it. This is interesting to investigate. Sorry for the noise. – Mic Dec 05 '09 at 22:05

score 2 · Answer 16 · answered Dec 20 '09 at 20:30

2

There is a port of the Django templating engine to JavaScript. However, its not been updated for a long time but it may still have enough features.

http://code.google.com/p/jtl-javascript-template/

answered Dec 20 '09 at 20:30

score 2 · Answer 17 · answered May 31 '10 at 06:47

2

Try Yajet too. ;-) It's a new one that I just released yesterday, but I'm using it for a while now and it's stable and fast (templates are compiled to a native JS function).

It has IMO the best syntax possible for a template engine, and a rich feature set despite its small code size (8.5K minified). It has directives that allow you to introduce conditionals, iterate arrays/hashes, define reusable template components etc.

answered May 31 '10 at 06:47

mishoo

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Interesting, nice work mishoo. Does it have any advantage over EJS? – trusktr Sep 02 '12 at 19:55

score 0 · Answer 18 · answered Aug 26 '12 at 11:42

0

Honestly, the best and most simple template engine for Node.js is (IMHO) Plates (https://github.com/flatiron/plates). You might also want to check out the Flatiron MVC framework for Node.js (http://flatiron.org).

answered Aug 26 '12 at 11:42

trusktr

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score 0 · Answer 19 · answered Feb 19 '12 at 02:54

0

I found hogan.js from Twitter and recommended by Tim O'Reilly on his site. I have no best practice with it, but I trust on Twitter and O'Reilly. You should try...

answered Feb 19 '12 at 02:54

KimKha

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score 0 · Answer 20 · answered Mar 12 '12 at 06:46

0

Here's a good evaluation of several engines http://engineering.linkedin.com/frontend/client-side-templating-throwdown-mustache-handlebars-dustjs-and-more

answered Mar 12 '12 at 06:46

Marius

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score -1 · Answer 21 · answered Sep 26 '11 at 08:07

-1

You can use dojox.dtl of DojoToolkit.org. Note that dojo 1.7 can well run on NodeJS and perform as a server side library. If you're interested, I can give you a simple example.

answered Sep 26 '11 at 08:07

supNate

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Is there a template engine for Node.js?

21 Answers21

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