When comparing Backbone vs Vue.js, the Slant community recommends Vue.js for most people. In the question“What are the best client-side JavaScript MV* frameworks?” Vue.js is ranked 1st while Backbone is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose Vue.js is:
Vue can easily be integrated with other front-end libraries. This makes it an extremely versatile tool and it's easy to fix its shortcomings or missing features by just plugging in another library.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Gives you the freedom to implement views however you want
A lightweight view class is provided but there is no default templating method implemented. Because views are minimal it allows for much more freedom to implement views however you would like, and because of this freedom it's possible to write views to more uniquely adapt to a problem.
User interactions are done within an events object that allows these interactions to be segregated from the rest of the view code which makes the behavioral aspect of the view easier to read and manage.
Pro Can be combined with any library you want
Backbone can be combined with any library of your choosing, giving you the ultimate flexibility in creating customized solutions for unique projects. Even the only two backbone requirements, jQuery and underscore can be replaced with equivalent libraries like zepto or lo-dash.
Pro Large community
Backbone has existed longer than most frameworks, and has a large following of users and projects using it as a framework.
Pro You can call underscore.js methods directly on Backbone objects
Backbone collections and models are extended by underscore.js method allowing you to call underscore methods directly on the Backbone objects.
Pro Easy to interface with the API
Backbone provides Model and Collection classes that provide strong analogs to restful resources. These strong analogs allow you to interface more naturally with the API, and makes it easier to write custom behaviors for more complicated API interactions.
Collections provide a variety of powerful manipulation methods that are integrated from the underscore library, that allow you to manipulate, sort, and filter collection data easily.
Pro Easy to implement complex user interaction
Because all the state is managed by Models and Controllers, and they are extendable objects, you can isolate all the state logic onto those objects allowing the rest of the application to not worry about it. The app is simplified to just taking in input to modify the Models and Controllers, and updating the views to reflect them, but none of the state needs to be a concern outside of the Model and Controller classes.
Pro Doesn’t force you into a particular coding style or paradigm
There is no “magic” happening below the surface: the source code is clear, readable and well commented. Backbone is also “lightweight” in the sense that it doesn’t require a ton of buy-in to use. It can be easily integrated into an existing page, and you can choose to only use certain components of the library (Views without Models or Collections, for example). While there are many frameworks that seem to be faster to get started with, Backbone’s lack of surprises, clear documentation, speed & flexibility make it a good fit for all types of apps.
Pro Extendable with plugins
Because Backbone is so simple, and the different components are very well isolated, it is very easy to extend the functionality of Backbone. If you're writing your own extended code it's easy to keep it separated out, and share with the community.
The community also has many plugins already available, which you can pick and choose to use to fit your programming style.
Pro Easy to abstract interaction
All Backbone classes extend an events class that allows for listening and triggering functionality. Because all classes implement events by default it is easier to provide asynchronous communication between objects, and it allows better abstraction of interaction so the event emitting object does not need to know the structure or existence of the receiving object.
Pro Can be used with any front-end stack
Vue can easily be integrated with other front-end libraries. This makes it an extremely versatile tool and it's easy to fix its shortcomings or missing features by just plugging in another library.
Pro Single file component
Very useful.
Pro Lightweight
Vue.js weighs in at 16kb min+gzip.
Pro Vuex store, events system
Pro Reactivity system
Pro CLI and Webpack integration
Pro Responsive server-side rendering
Since most of the mainstream server-side rendering implementations are synchronous, they can block the server's event loop when the application is complex.
Vue implements streaming server-side rendering, which allows you to render your component, get a readable stream and directly pipe that to the HTTP response. This allows you to have a responsive server and decreases the time your users have to wait before they get your rendered content.
Pro Supports inline templating
Although you can build components in JavaScript files, you can also use inline handlebars-like templating in your HTML views where simplicity is often a more sane choice.
Pro Can be made even lighter
Since the template-to-virtual-DOM and compiler can be separated, you can compile the templates in your machine and then deploying only the interpreter which is 12KB minified and gzipped.
Pro Support for both templates and JSX
You can choose to use either a templating language, or if you feel it's necessary to drop on a lower virtual-dom level, you can use JSX. This is simply done by replacing the template
option with a render
function.
Or alternatively, you can embed functions inside templates by using the <render>
tag.
Pro SEO friendly
Starting with Vue 2.0, Vue supports server-side rendering. This helps with SEO a lot, since the views are rendered directly on the server, which are indexed by search engines.
Pro VueRouter
Cons
Con Requires more coding compared to other frameworks
Because many features are not provided out of the box, you either have to write more base class code to get those features, or find a plugin that provides them in a way you like.
It does not provide much structure either, things like memory management must be kept in mind by the developer, also the lack of view lifecycle management makes state changes prone to memory leaks.
Con Can easily lead you to spaghetti code
Heavy event-binding can lead to unmanageable spaghetti mess. BB tempts users to overuse it for no reason.
Con No data binding
Backbone does not have data binding support. However, there are some libraries that can be implemented in order to have data binding in Backbone. Such as Epoxy
Con Poor typescript support
Very basic typescript support.