Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

ember.js VS Metalsmith

Compare ember.js VS Metalsmith and see what are their differences

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ember.js logo ember.js

A JavaScript framework for creating ambitious web apps

Metalsmith logo Metalsmith

An extremely simple, pluggable static site generator.
  • ember.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-04-15
  • Metalsmith Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-12-12

ember.js features and specs

  • Convention Over Configuration
    Ember.js emphasizes conventions, which can help streamline the development process and reduce decision fatigue by providing out-of-the-box solutions and standardizing code structure.
  • Robust CLI
    Ember CLI is a powerful command-line tool that helps automate numerous development tasks, such as scaffolding, building, testing, and deploying applications, making the developer's workflow more efficient.
  • EMBER Data
    Ember Data is a robust library for handling data models and relationships. It simplifies the process of interacting with APIs and managing data, offering built-in support for RESTful APIs.
  • Strong Community and Ecosystem
    Ember.js has a strong and active community, which results in extensive documentation, numerous addons, and regular updates, enhancing the framework's reliability and feature set.
  • Two-Way Data Binding
    Ember.js supports two-way data binding, which helps keep the model and the view in sync automatically. This feature simplifies the management of user input and model updates.
  • Built-in Testing
    Ember.js has built-in testing support, making it easier to write and run tests for applications. This facilitates the development of robust, maintainable, and bug-free code.
  • Focused on Large Applications
    Ember.js is particularly well-suited for ambitious, large-scale applications due to its structure and built-in best practices, which promote maintainability and scalability.

Possible disadvantages of ember.js

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Ember.js has a significant learning curve, particularly for developers who are new to its conventions and deep abstractions. This can be a barrier to entry for some.
  • Performance Overhead
    The comprehensive nature of Ember.js can lead to performance overhead, especially for smaller applications. The framework's rich feature set may be more than what is needed for simpler projects.
  • Less Flexibility
    The convention-over-configuration approach can reduce flexibility and make it harder to deviate from the prescribed way of doing things, which can be restrictive for developers who need more control.
  • Heavy Dependencies
    Ember.js applications can come with numerous dependencies, which can increase the bundle size and, subsequently, the load time of the application.
  • Slow to Adapt New Trends
    Being a mature framework, Ember.js can be slower to adopt the latest web development trends compared to newer frameworks, leading to potential lag in leveraging cutting-edge features.
  • Complexity in Customization
    While conventions can be beneficial, scenarios that require custom configurations can become complex and cumbersome, potentially complicating the development process.
  • Smaller Talent Pool
    Compared to more mainstream frameworks like React or Angular, there is a smaller pool of developers who are proficient in Ember.js, which can make hiring and collaboration more challenging.

Metalsmith features and specs

  • Flexible Architecture
    Metalsmith has a simple, yet powerful, plugin-based architecture that allows developers to easily customize and extend functionality to suit their specific needs.
  • Minimalistic Core
    Its lightweight core handles only the basic functions, which ensures that the site generation is fast and efficient, allowing you to only add what you need through plugins.
  • Ease of Use
    The straightforward configuration and operation of Metalsmith make it accessible for users, with minimal setup required to get started.
  • Active Community
    A vibrant community provides ample plugins and support, making it easier to find existing solutions and get help when you encounter issues.
  • Language Flexibility
    Being written in JavaScript and built on Node.js, it fits neatly within the modern web development ecosystem and is accessible to JavaScript developers.

Possible disadvantages of Metalsmith

  • Steeper Learning Curve for Beginners
    Users without prior experience in static site generators or those unfamiliar with Node.js might find the initial setup and understanding of its plugin-based system challenging.
  • Limited Official Documentation
    While there is basic documentation available, the official resources can be sparse, which might make it difficult for new users to get up to speed quickly without community assistance.
  • Maintenance Overhead
    With its heavy reliance on plugins, projects can become tricky to manage over time, especially if key plugins become obsolete or unmaintained.
  • Manual Plugin Integration
    Since all additional features need to be added through plugins, users must invest time in searching for, evaluating, and integrating these plugins to get desired functionalities.
  • Not Opinionated
    While this is a strength for flexibility, it can also be a downside as it doesn't provide a structured path for common use cases, requiring more decisions from the user.

Analysis of ember.js

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Ember.js is considered a good choice for developing ambitious web applications, particularly when the project benefits from a strong structure and standardized patterns.

Why this product is good

  • Ember.js is a robust JavaScript framework known for its convention over configuration philosophy, which speeds up development by providing built-in best practices and tools. It features a powerful command-line interface, two-way data binding, and an integrated router, making it particularly adept at creating scalable single-page applications. Additionally, Ember.js supports a vibrant community and a comprehensive ecosystem of plugins and add-ons, reducing the need to reinvent the wheel for common tasks.

Recommended for

  • Developers and teams building large-scale or complex web applications
  • Projects that require long-term maintenance and stability
  • Teams that benefit from a strong convention-driven approach
  • Applications that need real-time data updates and dynamic interfaces

ember.js videos

What is Ember.js?

More videos:

  • Review - A preview of Ember.js Octane

Metalsmith videos

Product Review 29 Badger Metalsmith Paint System

More videos:

  • Review - METALSMITHING FAQ! Answers to most commonly asked questions from you guys!
  • Review - DRAWING & SAWING jewelry design in real time. Jewelry metalsmithing

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to ember.js and Metalsmith)
Javascript UI Libraries
100 100%
0% 0
CMS
0 0%
100% 100
JavaScript Framework
100 100%
0% 0
Blogging
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare ember.js and Metalsmith

ember.js Reviews

Top JavaScript Frameworks in 2025
Ember.JS is an open-source, JavaScript client-side framework that is useful for developing web applications. It provides a complete solution containing data management and application flow to develop an application, making it one of the reasons developers prefer to use it. Ember.JS also uses an MVVM architecture pattern along with a command-line interface tool that helps in...
Source: solguruz.com
20 Next.js Alternatives Worth Considering
Ember.js is old school cool, a framework that’s been whispering sweet nothings to devs for years, helping build ambitious web applications. It wraps its arms around conventions and provides everything you need to build rich, complex web UIs.
The 20 Best Laravel Alternatives for Web Development
Ember.js — the ambitious framework that promises a developer heaven, paving your road to productivity with a convention-over-configuration dogma and a solidly structured path.
9 Best JavaScript Frameworks to Use in 2023
Ember.js: Ember.js provides a lot of built-in features and conventions, making it easy to get started and build complex applications. It has a strong focus on developer productivity.
Source: ninetailed.io
JavaScript: What Are The Most Used Frameworks For This Language?
In addition, it offers a powerful command-line interface (CLI) that can generate boilerplate code and automate common tasks, making it easier to get started and build applications quickly. With a strong focus on performance, Ember.JS provides features like fast initial page loads, incremental rendering and advanced caching mechanisms.
Source: www.bocasay.com

Metalsmith Reviews

We have no reviews of Metalsmith yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, ember.js should be more popular than Metalsmith. It has been mentiond 33 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

ember.js mentions (33)

  • Thinking in Templates
    Django, for example, has a template engine that allows you to define a template in HTML and render it with a context -- data usually sourced from the database via the Django view. However, with its filters and helpers, it is almost too powerful -- undermining the core idea of templating. The same goes for Ember.js, as well. - Source: dev.to / 20 days ago
  • Embroider & Vite & net::ERR_ABORTED 504 (Outdated Optimize Dep)
    While working on EmberJS projects, I've been using pre-alpha version of @embroider/app-blueprint quite a lot lately and I hit a baffling error:. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • ResponsiveImage & EmberJS & glob vite imports
    I had a need to dynamically load a folder images in my EmberJS app that is using embroider-build/app-blueprint and ResponsiveImage. Turns out I could use vite glob imports and resulting code looked something like:. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Installing EmberJS v2 addons from GitHub forks using PNPM
    If you're using PNPM as a package manager for your EmberJS project and you find yourself in a need to install a v2 addon from git(hub) fork (because you have a branch with patched version), then you might find that GitHub URLs in package.json tricks don't work for you. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Add custom layer to embe-leaflet
    Ember-leaflet is a very popular addon from EmberJS ecosystem that allows a lot of flexibility. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
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Metalsmith mentions (6)

  • Top ten popular static site generators (SSG) in 2023
    Metalsmith — the best customizable SSG. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • who is self-hosting a static website and what are you using to build it?
    I use Metalsmith. Been happy with it. I build my site into a self-contained nginx docker image. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Configuration error even if nothing changed since last successful deploy
    Const Metalsmith = require('metalsmith') Const markdown = require('@metalsmith/markdown') Const layouts = require('metalsmith-layouts') Const permalinks = require('@metalsmith/permalinks') Const collections = require('metalsmith-collections') Metalsmith(__dirname) .metadata({ sitename: 'Website Name', description: "Website description.", generator: 'Metalsmith', url: 'https://metalsmith.io/' ... Source: about 3 years ago
  • Why I built my own static site generator
    A static site generator I've been enjoying lately (and using for my blog) is Metalsmith: https://metalsmith.io/ It feel like it's the best of both worlds, because it's simple to learn and customize, but there are plugins for the things you don't want to spend time writing yourself. For example, I'm using plugins to: check for broken links, generate an RSS feed, and run a test server with automatic reloading. But... - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
  • What to use? Frustrated over choice...
    I really like using Metalsmith as a static site generator myself. It's incredibly lightweight and you can extend it in any direction you like if you feel the need. But if you want an out-of-the-box solution, grab something like Gatsby or Hugo. This site has a big list of them. Source: about 4 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing ember.js and Metalsmith, you can also consider the following products

AngularJS - AngularJS lets you extend HTML vocabulary for your application. The resulting environment is extraordinarily expressive, readable, and quick to develop.

GatsbyJS - Blazing-fast static site generator for React

Vue.js - Reactive Components for Modern Web Interfaces

Wintersmith - Flexible, minimalistic, multi-platform static site generator built on top of node.js

Backbone.js - Give your JS App some Backbone with Models, Views, Collections, and Events

Hexo - A fast, simple & powerful blog framework, powered by Node.js