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HTML5 Boilerplate vs Webapp generator

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When comparing HTML5 Boilerplate vs Webapp generator, the Slant community recommends HTML5 Boilerplate for most people. In the question“What are the best boilerplates for modern webapp front-end development?” HTML5 Boilerplate is ranked 1st while Webapp generator is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose HTML5 Boilerplate is:

These configuration files may help increase performance of the webapp.

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What are the best boilerplates for modern webapp front-end development?

Pros

Pro
Includes a comprehensive set of server configuration files

These configuration files may help increase performance of the webapp.

Pro
Includes Modernizr

Modernizr checks browser support for HTML5, CSS3, as well as a few other miscellaneous elements and allows for easily writing fallbacks if they're not supported.

Pro
Documented and undocumented versions

To help out newcommers to either programming in general or HTML5 Boilerplate specifically, the boilerplate includes in-depth docs that help understand how things work and why certain choices are made. The documentation is highly comprehensive going even as far as to describe every single line of normalize.css that the H5BP includes.

Pro
Cross-browser normalization

H5BP includes normalize.css that will help fix inconsistencies in the way browsers render elements.

Pro
Performance optimizations

HTML5 Boilerplate theme doesn't only provide a base template for building your next modern site. It also has performance optimization features built into it which include stuff like html + js minification , image size reduction as well as css minification. This link here describes how to optimize your shiny new html5 site using these built in features.

Pro
Optional support for XHR and Flash

With optional support for XHR, we can use techniques such as XHR eval and XHR injections to optimize the loading of external scripts and significantly reduce page load times. Alongside XHR, built-in support for Flash means that you can use your old swf/flash content on your website, where you feel you're not ready for HTML5 yet.

Pro
Auto resolve dependencies

Any dependencies in the webapp generated can be automatically resolved, thanks to Web-app-generator's powerful integration with Bower.

Pro
Image optimizations

Automatic automatic image optimization is a pre-built functionality of the web app generator. So that any sites that are made using this tool are perfectly optimized for performance.

Pro
Automatic compilation & linting

As the title suggests, the yeoman watch will auto-compile your JavaScript and Sass scripts for you. Also your code will be run through JsHint (for liniting) to make sure best practices are followed as well.

Pro
Built in preview server & live reload

The yeoman watch will compile your source files for you and refresh your page in the browser, as soon as it detects some changes that you've made.

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Cons

Con
Not a complete solution

HTML5 Boilerplate is basically just that, a template or a basis on which to build an HTML page. It doesn't have much mark up or components out of the box. In other words, it doesn't provide all the components and tools needed to build a UI, it contains best practices and a generall template on which to build your UI.