When comparing Closure Templates vs Dust.js, the Slant community recommends Dust.js for most people. In the question“What are the best JavaScript templating engines?” Dust.js is ranked 9th while Closure Templates is ranked 19th. The most important reason people chose Dust.js is:
Easily extendable using filters and helpers. Can consume any public API.
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Pros
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.
Pro Filters
Easily extendable using filters and helpers. Can consume any public API.
Pro Cache templates at the client side
Dust.js compiles its templates to plain old javascript, and since javascript files are cacheable, that essentially means your templates can be cached at the client side.
Pro Write once run anywhere
Since Dust's templates are written in JS, there's nothing stopping you from running the same DustJS code both on the client as well as server side (if it supports V8/Rhino JS engine).
Pro Interactive tutorial
Dust.js is quite easy to begin with, thanks to it's powerful interactive tutorial.
Cons
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.
Con There are no new releases
And apparently Linkedin will not support it more.
Con Not enough community support
Since the number of people currently using Dust.js is quite insignificant as compared to Mustache js and Handlebars, you're less likely to get your question answered or issue resolved if you start using it.