When comparing Handlebars.js vs Closure Templates, the Slant community recommends Handlebars.js for most people. In the question“What are the best JavaScript templating engines?” Handlebars.js is ranked 2nd while Closure Templates is ranked 19th. The most important reason people chose Handlebars.js is:
Handlebars is available as a JavaScript library, a [Django](https://github.com/yavorskiy/django-handlebars) module as well as [Java](https://github.com/jknack/handlebars.java), [Ruby](https://github.com/MSch/handlebars-ruby), [Scala](https://github.com/mwunsch/handlebars.scala), [.Net](https://github.com/rexm/Handlebars.Net) & [PHP](https://github.com/zordius/lightncandy) libraries, which means you can use it for frontend and backend templating in the language of your choice.
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Pros
Pro Clean syntax
Handlebars's syntax is very readable and easy to understand.
Pro Clear separation of logic and markup
If something is not within {{
and }}
, it's not Handlebars. As a result, Handlebars "weaves" through HTML, instead of trying to become an invalid extension of it.
Pro Copy/Paste code from the internet
Examples for Bootstrap or other CSS frameworks are always in HTML. With Handlebards you can just copy and paste the examples in your code. With something like Pug (Jade) you have to convert the HTML to Pug (Jade) first.
Pro Easy to use for templating things other than HTML
The syntax allows the output to be any text and does not contrain the user to HTML output only. There are examples of handlebars being used to produce SQL, javascript and other programming language code.
Pro Easy to use any template also as partials
Templates may be nested and reusable parts can be factored out.
Pro Compiled rather than interpreted templates
Handlebars.js allows you to pre-compile your templates so that the loading time at the client end could be reduced when your templated page is loaded.
Pro Mustache compatible
You can import Mustache templates and add extra functionality, that's provided by Handlebars, on top of them.
Pro Good global helpers support
Pro Logic-less
By design, logic-less templates force you to separate concerns thus helping you avoid future problems with refactoring. It also allow templates to be used with multiple programming languages without changes.
Pro Good paths support
With Handlebars.js you can create bindings with variables inside any path in your application.
Pro Easy to define extensions
With a few lines of code, a new extension (control or templating function) can be implemented. It will be called by the compiled templates.
Pro Language independent
The same template written in Closure would work both on Java as well as javascript.
Pro Well Tested and used by Gmail and Google Docs
Closure Templates being a project created by Google, is extensively used in some of the world's most famous and largest web apps which include Gmail and Google Docs. What this means for you is that you'll be using a Template engine that has not only been intensively tested but also that you'll be in good company, with lots of technical support.
Pro Secure
Closure has been designed keeping most security risks in mind. Templates created using Closure are auto-escaped automatically. Hence you won't have to worry about any XSS attacks.
Pro High Performance
Closure templates do not tend to slow down your site's performance or increase your page load time. They're compiled to extremely efficient JS code so that your page renders extremely fast, whether the templating is done on the client end or the server end.
Cons
Con Hard to use documentation
Although the documentation exists and is fairly comprehensive, it's not always clearly written, and there is no search capacity.
Con Handlebars are still an HTML code
Handlebars use the standard HTML syntax with its own {{tags}} for templating. This doesn't add much to readability or design speed.
Con Using partials is cumbersome
"In order to use a partial, it must be registered" using some JavaScript method attached to some global variable.
Con Not much editor support
Handlebars.js doesn't seem to have many text editors that support things like auto-complete, syntax highlighting or error checking for it.
Con Does not play well with Angular.js
.. or any framework where you wish to compile handlebars.js template to the template understanable by the framework.
Con Hard to find what you need in documentation
Docs are pretty, but hard to find exactly what you need. Although language has nice macros, you're going to hate them when they fail and you search for info for half an hour.
Con Strange errors from compiler
You won't get used to them even after a while.
Con Not widely used outside of Google
Closure Templates are mostly used in projects developed by Google and not in projects by third-parties. As such, it's unlikely for further versions to be released or for changes to be merged.