What are the differences between the express-handlebars, express-hbs and hbs modules,

node.js express handlebars.js template-engine
Yohaï-Eliel Berreby picture Yohaï-Eliel Berreby · Nov 9, 2014 · Viewed 14.2k times · Source

I'm trying to use Handlebars with Express, and I found the modules express-handlebars, express-hbs and hbs which all seem to work similarly. What are the main differences between them that I should be aware of, given that I need to able to use layouts and partials?

Answer

oleh.meleshko picture oleh.meleshko · Feb 23, 2016

Looks like the comment above needs to be updated a bit.

Updated list is here:

  1. Express-handlebars

Seems to be the most popular package at the moment. There is live chat on gitter. Dependencies are up-to date and current npm version is 3.0.0. Last update 29 days ago (at the moment of this post) One important thing is about its license - it's licensed by Yahoo Inc (others are MIT licensed).

There is really good documentation in README with extended explanation of every feature including API information. Here you will find both basic and advanced usage.

One difference in comparison with other packages is an ability to use Hooks. In this way you can override some functionality of ExpressHandlebars instances.

  1. hbs

Easy to use view engine with almost the same functionality as in Express-handlebars, but last activity was 4 months ago. Anyway tests are green at the moment. Has MIT license.

  1. Express-hbs

This package is written by guys from Barc. Can be used with both express 3/4 versions. It says about i18n support which is good, but it's also easy to integrate i18n everywhere else so I'd not say it's a feature. Has MIT license.

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