Mithril vs Polymer

Most other frameworks either offer a huge API to deal with model and view synchronization, or defer to other libraries & plugins to cater for relatively simple use cases. Mithril's API is tiny but complete. The natural reaction is to assume something is missing, but as you build you realise you incredibly fast, powerful and rich applications can be built using nothing but Mithril.

Mithril's loading times are very fast. This is because it's templates are compiled first and then served to the browser and because it uses a virtual DOM. The virtual DOM is a virtual tree containing all the nodes of the real DOM, every time anything changes in the virtual DOM, Mithril does not re-render the entire (real) DOM, instead it just searches and applies the differences.

Most MVC frameworks use HTML templates to render their views. They are good and useful because they are easy to read and understand. But they add more complication to an app because it's practically a new language and syntax that needs to be learned.

Mithril argues that separating markup from logic is just a separation of technologies and not concerns, so you can write Mithril views in JavaScript. Writing them in JavaScript also makes it easier to debug them (HTML templates can't be debugged).

Doesn't lock you into any complicated conventions or structures, only one function is required to create either a Controller or a View. You're free to implement your architecture exactly as you want, so you can focus on the purpose of MVC, making connections between computer data and stuff in the end user's head.

Weights just 8Kb gzipped and has no dependencies. A reactive stream module can be added for one extra Kb.

Mithril has a large and expansive documentation despite it's relatively small API. Mithril's GitHub repo has more documentation than actual source code. None of that documentation is auto-generated

One thing you need to start using Mithril is just a DOM node. With Mithril a developer is able to introduce the library step by step.

Mithril gives to the developer the flexibility to chose the best JavaScript library to use for a specific task.
A huge framework like Angular instead forces you to use their API, which does not necessarily evolve as fast as the JavaScript ecosystem. Therefore you may end up in case when you are stuck using an API which is just not the best in terms of performance

It's plain old JavaScript, can be used without webpack, gulp or grunt, just include it into your HTML and start writing your app.

Mithril's API is pretty small compared to other frameworks. It forces developers to solve problems in JavaScript rather than in Mithril. Other frameworks with massive APIs force you to think in a way that suits the framework. Mithril doesn't do that.

It provides a base component.

HTML markup as it can be a non-string.

It provides Flex layout components.

CSS can be applied far more comfortably than React.

The presence od specialized debugging tools are advertised by competitors. The all features of web components are natively supported by browser embedded development tools.

The router is embedded into CLI for project creation and covers as web as Progressive web app, also fused with Polymer layouts out of the box. The shop template for CLI has a complete solution including the routing.

Full app stack from data tier to routing, progressive web app, responsive layouts makes no need to seek outside of Polymer ecosystem for application features.

In addition to waste set of mature web components in Polymer Elements along with Vaadin Elements there are thousands of web components in the wild comparable to jQuery plugins set.

Polymer guides you as with tools (cli, build environment, app templates,..) as with complimentary documentation on all phases of app development from creation of app as progresive web app to production deployment instructions.

As Polymer is standards based, the whole community around those standards also helping in documentation and support.

Web Components are a collection of specifications released by W3C as a way to reduce the complexity of web apps by creating reusable components. Browser support is currently poor for web components, however Polymer is developed to make web components compatible with modern browsers.

The Polymer APIs are split on application layers and follow standards on all possible ways: Web Components, CSS variables, async API via Promises and so on.