Mustache.js vs EJS
When comparing Mustache.js vs EJS, the Slant community recommends Mustache.js for most people. In the question“What are the best JavaScript templating engines?” Mustache.js is ranked 4th while EJS is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose Mustache.js is:
Mustache provides you with a clean and easy to understand syntax. Having a syntax that is readable is always a huge plus, since this means easier maintenance and code readability in the future.
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Pros
Pro Clean syntax
Mustache provides you with a clean and easy to understand syntax. Having a syntax that is readable is always a huge plus, since this means easier maintenance and code readability in the future.
Pro Available in lots of languages
Available in a wide variety of languages including Ruby, JavaScript, Python, C++, Scala, Go, Julia, Swift and more. See the full list here.
Pro Lightweight
Mustache is easy to deliver. If you need more features down the road, you can switch to handlebars, which is a superset of Mustache.
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 Server side support
Mustache.js has multi-language server side support, which essentially means you can use mustache based templates on languages other than javascript. (like if your server-side was built on Java you could still use Mustache.js)
Pro Popular
This would mean that you'll have a large community to help you out if you run into any problems.
Pro Can be compiled
Mustache templates can be compiled to JS files, so that they can be directly loaded.
Pro Complete JavaScript logic
EJS uses all the JS jargon and logic, so if you're proficient in JS, you can use EJS right away.
Pro Same language before and after rendering
Your html/text remains pretty much the same before and after rendering. EJS filters out and performs its functions on any occurrences of its own <%= %>
tags in your template.
Pro Lightning-fast to learn
EJS introduces fairly small amount of new syntax that one has to learn to become fully proficient. The syntax itself is easy to comprehend for anyone who is even somewhat familiar with JavaScript and CSS.
Pro Consistently scores rather well in benchmarks
According to some benchmark tests, EJS is way faster than Jade or Haml.
Pro Powerful error handling
EJS has a really smart error handling mechanism built right into it. It points out to you, the line numbers on which an error has occurred, so that you don't end up looking through the whole template file wasting your time in searching for bugs.
Cons
Con Basic tasks are difficult
Mustache js's attempts at making some things simple makes them so easy that they're almost difficult. That is the case with some basic tasks like figuring out how to apply css to shade odd/even rows on your template based content.
Con Bested by Handlebars in many ways
Handlebars being an extension of Mustache bests it in both speed and power. It adds additional features to Mustache which make writing templates easier and faster.
Benchmarks have also shown that Precompiled Handlebars renders in about half the time of Mustache and the rewritten Handlebars (current version) is 5 to 7 times faster than Mustache.
Con No support for block by default
EJS has no support for the block
functionality which allows you to reuse pieces of templates across different files. Although it can be added to EJS through a third-party library.
Con Cryptic syntax
Much more difficult to read, especially for designer/HTML people who don't write JavaScript.