When comparing Knockout 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 Knockout is ranked 2nd. 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 Easy data binding
Knockout uses HTML5 data attributes to bind HTML elements to data objects in javascript. This allows more work to be done by the framework rather than requiring you to specify where data should be bound in the javascript. The data binding is very intuitive as the bindings are done within the HTML itself in the location it should be bound.
Pro Easy to learn
Has a low entry barrier and an easy learning curve. It's especially easy to learn for beginners.
Pro Built in templating
Bindings in Knockout can also be used to control the generated structure of the HTML. There are bindings provided to allow for iteration and conditionals. The structure of the html reflects the structure of the data so iterative elements are bound to arrays in the data model. Having the HTML structure maintained by bindings keeps the templating simple, easy to read, and maintain.
Knockout also allows for string based templating so you can use whatever templating library you prefer.
Pro Legacy browser support
Supports a large number of browsers, including IE6.
Pro Great documentation
The excellent tutorials with built-in exercises are a great learning experience, even for people without prior MVVM and data binding experience.
Pro Lightweight and plays nicely with other libraries
Pro Dynamic models help with keeping the code simple and clean
Models in Knockout can be watched to keep the page data up to date by using observable objects. The observables notify Knockout when data is changed and automatically updates the page when this happens. By having Knockout maintain this relation, it keeps the front end code cleaner and simpler, and by enforcing a consistent pattern with observables the methodology can be more robust.
Pro Very flexible
One can do a lot of things and it keeps self references and other types of loops under control.
Pro It's only a library
Knockout does one thing, and does it well. It doesn't try to take on more than one area. It does MVVM data binding and that is it.
Pro Simple manageable modules
Using components is a great way of breaking up large modules into simpler ones.
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 Slower than others when amount of objects grows
Knockout has a bad performance when the dealing with large amount of objects. You can see more here.
Con Can become complex once the application grows large
Knockout leaves the application structure to the developer and it can become quite complex and unmanageable in the hands of a beginner once the application grows large and complex.
Con Two way binding requires a little extra work
When allowing users to edit existing data, the two-way binding of observables means you'll need to have to save original values before they're edited, to make comparisons or revert if the user cancels the action.
Con Poor typescript support
Very basic typescript support.