Recs.
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Specs
Pros
Pro Opinionated in terms of application structure
Ember already defines the general application structure and organization for you. This was done to prevent developers from making mistakes which would needlessly over-complicate their application. While it's still possible to go out of these practices forced to developers by the Ember authors, you still have to go out of your way to force them.
Pro Uses Handlebars
Ember's preferred templating language is Handlebars. This is mainly because Handlebars is a logic-less templating language and Ember tries to keep it's logic outside the view.
Another reason why Ember benefits from Handlebars is mostly aesthetic as Handlebar's clean syntax makes for easier to read and understand templates.
Finally, Handlebars templates are compiled instead of interpreted, which means that they are much faster to load.
Pro Easy to understand documentation
The Ember Guides are well structured and very well written. The API documentation is also fantastic.
Pro Ember's Object model makes the framework extremely consistent
Most of Ember's components come from the Ember Object Model. It's the basis for views, controllers, models and even the framework itself. This means that the framework is extremely consistent since almost every component shares the same core functionalities and properties since they are all derived from the same object.
Pro Excellent API
Ember's API are really easy to understand and work with. It has methods which allow you to harness complicated functionalities in an easy to understand way.
Pro Debugging tool for almost every web browser
Ember also has a debugging tool called Ember Inspector which is used for debugging the client side of your app.
Pro Computed properties
Having custom properties in your templates is itself a huge plus but having custom computed properties is an even greater benefit, since now you can code your custom function as a property and call it from your template. Hence rendering your page exactly according to your needs.
Pro Auto-updating templates
If you've used handlebars (Ember.js's templating is powered by HandleBars) helper tags in your code (like {{#each}}
) you won't have to worry about updating your template each time you add/remove data from your page, Handlebars will auto update your template for you.
Cons
Con Very opinionated
Ember (and many extensions, like Ember Data) force the implementation down specific architectural paths. These paths are what Ember believes is best practice and typically are fine, but not in all cases. This can occasionally lead to fighting with your framework which is never productive.