Top 10 Javascript Frameworks - Which do you prefer?
April 1, 2008 - Categories: Ajax, Javascript, Popular, Web 2.0 Apps.
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Javascript libraries have become fundamental to good web design, almost all ste nowadays have some element of javascript or Ajax present. It is probably the main element in developing the Web 2.0 movement.
There are many Frameworks, which do you prefer?

1. script.aculo.us (http://script.aculo.us/)

script.aculo.usURL: http://script.aculo.us/.
Blog: n/a.
Documentation: http://wiki.script.aculo.us/.
Note: script.aculo.us is not a Framework by its self but it is an addon for Prototype.

“script.aculo.us provides you with easy-to-use, cross-browser user interface JavaScript libraries to make your web sites and web applications fly.”

2. Prototype (http://www.prototypejs.org/)

PrototypeURL: http://www.prototypejs.org/.
Blog: http://www.prototypejs.org/blog.
Documentation: http://www.prototypejs.org/learn.

“Prototype is a JavaScript Framework that aims to ease development of dynamic web applications. Featuring a unique, easy-to-use toolkit for class-driven development and the nicest Ajax library around, Prototype is quickly becoming the codebase of choice for web application developers everywhere.”

3. Moo Tools (http://www.mootools.net/)

Moo ToolsURL: http://www.mootools.net/.
Blog: http://blog.mootools.net/.
Documentation: http://docs.mootools.net/.
Demos:http://demos.mootools.net/.

“MooTools is a compact, modular, Object-Oriented JavaScript framework designed for the intermediate to advanced JavaScript developer. It allows you to write powerful, flexible, and cross-browser code with its elegant, well documented, and coherent API.”

4. jQuery (http://jquery.com/)

jQueryURL: http://jquery.com/.
Blog: http://jquery.com/blog/.
Documentation: http://docs.jquery.com/.

“jQuery is a fast, concise, JavaScript Library that simplifies how you traverse HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, and add Ajax interactions to your web pages. jQuery is designed to change the way that you write JavaScript”.

5. MochiKit (http://www.mochikit.com/)

MochiKitURL: http://www.mochikit.com/.
Blog: http://www.mochikit.com/blog.html.
Documentation: http://www.mochikit.com/doc/html/MochiKit/index.html.
Demos:http://www.mochikit.com/demos.html.

“MochiKit - makes JavaScript suck a bit less”.

6. Rialto (http://rialto.improve-technologies.com/wiki/)

URL: http://rialto.improve-technologies.com/wiki/.
Blog: n/a
Documentation: http://rialto.improve-technologies.com/js/doc/.
Demos:http://rialto.improve-technologies.com/rialto/.

“Rialto (Rich Internet Application Toolkit) is ajax-based cross browser javascript widgets library”.

7. Dojo Toolkit (http://dojotoolkit.org)

URL: http://dojotoolkit.org/about.
Blog: http://dojotoolkit.org/blog.
Documentation: http://dojotoolkit.org/docs.
Demos:http://dojotoolkit.org/demos.

“Dojo is an Open Source DHTML toolkit written in JavaScript. Dojo aims to solve some long-standing historical problems with DHTML which prevented mass adoption of dynamic web application development”.

8. Spry Framework (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/spry/)

URL: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/spry/.
Blog: n/a.
Documentation: http://www.adobe.com/go/labs_gnav_wiki.
Demos:http://www.adobe.com/go/labs_gnav_showcase.

“The Spry framework for Ajax is a JavaScript library that provides easy-to-use yet powerful Ajax functionality that allows designers to build pages that provide a richer experience for their users. It is designed to take the complexity out of Ajax and allow designers to easily create Web 2.0 pages”.

9. ASP.NET Ajax Framework (http://asp.net/ajax/)

URL: http://asp.net/ajax/.
Blog: n/a.
Documentation: http://asp.net/ajax/documentation/.
Demos:http://asp.net/ajax/showcase/.

“ASP.NET AJAX is a free framework for quickly creating efficient and interactive Web applications that work across all popular browsers”.

10. Cean Ajax Framework (http://sourceforge.net/projects/clean-ajax/)

URL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/clean-ajax/.
Blog: n/a.
Documentation: http://sourceforge.net/docman/?group_id=145307.

“Easy to use AJAX framework that provides message queue, XSLT, XPath, encryption (SHA1, MD5), web service access (SOAP, XMLRPC), JSON-RPC, cross browser AJAX, AJAX history and cache control”.

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53 Comments so far

  1. Jowra on April 1, 2008 6:59 am

    MooTools.

    jQuery is great too, but I like the style and elegance of MooTools.

  2. Chris on April 1, 2008 7:11 am

    After much time spent on many of these I came away a jQuery convert.

  3. Jim Knight on April 1, 2008 8:50 am

    Jquery can’t be beat. Easy to use if you know CSS. Simple ajax. Chaining is great.

  4. João Araújo on April 1, 2008 9:22 am

    Have used Prototype but since I discovered Jquery I never looked back!

  5. Brian Moschel on April 1, 2008 11:21 am

    JavaScriptMVC is another to add to the list. It stresses best practices like file and code organization, compression, error notification, and testing.

  6. milus on April 1, 2008 11:54 am

    Definitely jQuery!

  7. noth on April 1, 2008 12:59 pm

    jquery!!!

  8. jeff haynie on April 1, 2008 3:24 pm

    You should also check out the Appcelerator RIA platform at http://www.appcelerator.org

  9. michael on April 1, 2008 5:50 pm

    The last one Should be “clean ajax” and not “cean ajax”

  10. Zac on April 1, 2008 7:08 pm

    Another for jquery!

  11. flashpro on April 1, 2008 11:30 pm

    Why is Yahoo! YUI not in the list?

  12. JamieO on April 2, 2008 10:47 am

    I, like most on this list, think that jQuery is the sh*t. But regardless of your preference - before you start AJAX’ing this and animating that, you should detect if the visitor is one of those poor unfortunate souls who has turned javascript off, does not have it installed or using archaic technology.

  13. mrrookie on April 2, 2008 6:19 pm

    I am pretty new to the whole javascript thing and after doing a bit of research, i started learning jquery and i feel very very comfortable with it.

  14. Iain on April 3, 2008 1:57 am

    I started out with prototype, but a colleague put me onto jQuery and I never looked back.

  15. mel on April 3, 2008 11:25 am

    I’m personally all over the place…

    scriptaculous and mootools are crazy easy to implement

    I’ve just started working with the Yahoo YUI stuff and it’s a little tricky to get going at first but I like the extensive library and examples so you aaren’t left searching newsgroups for more complicated code…

    Even though I haven’t used it yet, I’ve a TUN more published about JQuery in recent monhts so I think that will actually be my next choice :)

  16. José Chafardet on April 4, 2008 8:22 pm

    jQuery all the way, i find mootools very good, and have used scriptaculous a bit, but since i discovered jQuery, i fell inlove with it.

  17. Publicidad en Internet on April 8, 2008 3:48 pm

    I was using mootols, but i think jquery have bigger possibilities and community to support the applications

  18. Philip Weaver on June 17, 2008 4:52 pm

    Echo3 now supports creating webapps in Javascript. It supports object literal notation, layouts with zero HTML, a component model, and is extensively stylable/customizable using component oriented stylesheets. It is very elegant, lean, and easy to use.
    http://echo.nextapp.com/site/echo3
    (Apologies if this is reposted - entered email was incorrectly.)

  19. Asfahaan on July 1, 2008 7:18 pm

    Thanks! :)

  20. dark_cybernetics on September 5, 2008 8:48 am

    how about extJS.com ?

  21. David Smith on September 27, 2008 3:29 pm

    You should check out the light weight JAK Framework. JAK is an Open Source Object Oriented Program built enterprises.

  22. Steve on October 2, 2008 8:03 am

    Most people know this already, but Scriptaculous requires Prototype; it is like Prototype’s GUI effects stuff. So is Rico, not listed here.
    But yeah, jQuery rocks the house!

  23. Andi Gutmans on October 21, 2008 5:06 am

    CodeIgniter rocks!

  24. Mike V. on November 10, 2008 10:46 am

    Excluding Ext JS from this list is pure incompetence. Five of the ten listed should not even be on the list. Do some research next time.

  25. elchat on November 26, 2008 11:09 am

    Hello i Prefer Prototype
    elchat

  26. gregsometimes on December 16, 2008 12:26 pm

    jQuery only #4 on the list? Where is Prototype? EXT?

    What Is jQuery?

  27. Martin on January 26, 2009 8:19 am

    It’s difficult to compare and therefore rate these libraries/frameworks, because each delivers something different. Some focus on effects, others on controls, others emphasize DOM manipulation or AJAX etc. I guess it really depends on your need as to which you would rate the highest.

  28. Vipul Limbachiya on February 18, 2009 6:33 am

    Have worked with prototype, now working with jQuery. Between these 2 I feel jQuery is better. Support for jQuery is ossum!!

  29. MaxiWheat on February 18, 2009 7:13 am

    I began doing some AJAX using Prototype 3 or 4 years ago, and I think I begin to master it pretty well now. But after all my reading I begin to think to switch to jQuery, it is more actively maintained (Prorotype’s last major update is more than 1 year ago) and in every performance benchmark Prototype is almost always in last place, jQuery first or second. Plus jQuery have a better plugin/widget community.

  30. Dean on February 18, 2009 8:09 am

    My initial learning of Javascript was a painful experience. JQuery has eased the pain significantly. I can’t imagine scripting without it.

    I have heard that performance wise JQuery is one of the slower libraries. But I look forward to seeing how it improves with each new version.

  31. jetm on February 18, 2009 9:08 am

    jQuery and ExtJS

  32. Jason Bartholme on February 18, 2009 12:01 pm

    Based on the fact that I have only used jQuery on my last five projects. I’m going to have to say it’s my favorite and I don’t think I will stray anytime soon. It a vast user base with tons of plugins.

  33. Olivier Allouch on February 19, 2009 1:59 am

    If you’re an ok developer, you should definitely go for mootools. The API looks like an API. And there’s not afraid of refactoring to keep it clean.

  34. Gafitescu Daniel on February 19, 2009 9:57 am

    1) Jquery
    2) Ext Js
    3) Prototype
    4) Mootools
    5) script.aculo.us

  35. Aycan Gulez on March 8, 2009 3:52 am

    If you are looking for a light-weight JavaScript framework that supports CSS selectors, I’d recommend midori: http://www.midorijs.com

  36. JustMe on March 12, 2009 5:08 pm

    Please, put EXT JS on the list next time.

  37. cancel bubble on March 25, 2009 9:09 am

    I’ve used Prototype/Scriptaculous, YUI and jQuery (the latter being my favorite). They are ALL very cool, but personally I was drawn to jQuery.

    Was surprised to not see YUI on this list and even EXT.

  38. Himanshu on April 2, 2009 3:36 am

    Surprise YUI is not in a List?

  39. DREW on June 4, 2009 5:11 am

    jQuery is definitely my favorite for adding effects/checking/ajax to pages, and is extremely non-obtrusive. You can usually get away with using it without any conflicts with the JS you already have when refactoring a page/site.

    ExtJS is probably better for building highly-integrated front-ends. The core is set up for trees, grids, etc. The syntax is a bit more heavy than jQuery, but that’s the tradeoff. I think that a lot of people will find the virtues of ExtJS once they reach the limits of jQuery.

  40. Kio-G on June 19, 2009 3:02 am

    It’s all about the jQuery baby!