Shootout! Template engines for the JVM

These slides were from my JFall 2013 presentation about new template engines for the JVM. During this presentation I gave a short introduction to new and interesting template engines and show how they compare to the most well known: JSP, Velocity and Freemarker.

Transcript

1. Shootout! Template engines for the JVM Jeroen Reijn | @jreijn | #jfall13
2. About me • Architect @ Hippo • Worked on web based platforms since 2001 with PHP, XSLT, JSP, Velocity and Freemarker • Blogger at http://blog.jeroenreijn.com
3. Session agenda • General overview • Interesting template engines • Benchmark project • Performance results
4. Template engine? • What is a Template ? • What is a Template Engine ? • How many Java Template Engines ? • Java-Source.net : 21 • Wikipedia: 17
5. Most commonly used • JSP • Freemarker • Velocity
6. Overview
7. Selection criteria • Project activity • Framework support • Active Community • Brings added value • IDE support
8. Most interesting • Thymeleaf • Mustache • Jade • Scalate
9. Thymeleaf
10. Overview • Available at http://www.thymeleaf.org/ • Java, DOM based template engine • XML / XHTML / HTML5 • Full Spring MVC integration • ‘Natural templating’
11. Natural templating • From Wikipedia: “The template can be a document as valid as the final result, the engine syntax doesn't break the document's structure”
12. JSP in browser
13. Thymeleaf in browser
15. Variables & Loops • Variables ! • Loops
16. Fragments • Include fragment ! • Define fragment based on th:fragment
17. {{ Mustache }}
18. Overview • Available at https://mustache.github.com • “logic-less” because there are no control statements (i.e. if, else, loops, etc) • Tags are specified using {{ }} (looks like a mustache) • Implemented by many languages: Java, Ruby, JavaScript, Python, Erlang, PHP, Objective- C, .NET, C++, Go, ColdFusion, Scala, etc.
19. Overview • Java implementations: • JMustache • Mustache.java • Not web specific • Spring MVC integration as an 3th party add-on
20. Variables { “greeting” : “Hello”, “message” : “World” } {{greeting}} {{message}} Data Template Hello World Output
21. Sections { "repo": [ { "name": "resque" }, { "name": "hub" }, { "name": "rip" }, ] } {{#repo}} <li>{{name}}</li> {{/repo}} Data Template <li>resque</li> <li>hub</li> <li>rip</li> Output
22. Fragments base.mustache: <h2>Presentations</h2> {{#presentations}} {{> presentation}} {{/presentations}} ! presentation.mustache: <h3>{{title}}</h3> <p>{{startTime}}</p> Template
23. Jade
24. Jade • Available at http://jade-lang.com • Node.js Template engine • Java Implementation: Jade4j • Compact notation
25. Syntax
26. Result
27. Variables & Iterations • Variables ! • Iterations
28. Fragments
30. Overview • Available at http://scalate.fusesource.org/ • Scala based Template Engine (ScalaTE) • Templates are compiled as Scala objects • Equivalent to using JSP, JSTL, JSP EL & Tiles / Sitemesh • Integration available for Spring, Play, Lift, ...
31. Template languages • SSP (Scala Server Pages) • SCAML (based on Ruby’s HAML) • Mustache • Jade
32. Scaml • Based on HAML (HTML abstraction markup language) • Integrates Scala code • Well formatted markup • Similar to Jade
33. Variables & Loops ! ! • Fragment support is possible • Inline Scala code
34. Benchmark project
35. Benchmark project • Simple Spring MVC application • Multiple view resolvers • Page that show a list of presentations • Uses page layouts / fragments • Uses i18n where possible
36. Spring MVC
37. public class Presentation { private Long id; private String title; private String speakerName; private String summary; private String room; private Date startTime; private Date endTime; }
39. Project available • Project will be available as open source on github. • https://github.com/jreijn/spring-comparing- template-engines
40. Results!
41. Performance 0,00s 3,57s 7,14s 10,71s 14,29s 17,86s 21,43s 25,00s Total time taken for 25.000 requests (less is better) Thymeleaf - v2.1.0 Jade4j - v0.3.17 Scalate - v1.6.1 Mustache - v1.8 Freemarker - v2.3.19 Velocity - v1.7 JSP - 2.1
42. Findings • Thymeleaf uses more memory and was slower then the commonly used • Scalate was a lot slower due to the layout mechanism. More than 100 seconds for 25.000 requests. • Mustache performs really well!
43. Tips • If you want designers to own your templates consider Mustache or Thymeleaf • If you want developers to own your templates: • If you want to generate HTML / XML and DRY? => Jade • otherwise: JSP, Freemarker, etc
44. Thank you! Questions? @jreijn j.reijn@onehippo.com