Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

highlight.js VS Marked.js

Compare highlight.js VS Marked.js and see what are their differences

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highlight.js logo highlight.js

Highlight.js is a syntax highlighter written in JavaScript. It works in the browser as well as on the server.

Marked.js logo Marked.js

A full-featured markdown parser and compiler, written in JavaScript. Built for speed.
  • highlight.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-25
  • Marked.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-23

highlight.js features and specs

  • Wide Language Support
    Highlight.js supports a comprehensive range of programming languages out of the box, making it versatile for various projects.
  • Automatic Language Detection
    It can automatically detect the programming language of a code block, reducing the setup time and effort for developers.
  • Customization
    Highlight.js offers numerous themes and customization options, allowing developers to easily tailor the syntax highlighting to match their application's aesthetic.
  • Lightweight and Fast
    The library is lightweight and performs efficiently, ensuring quick load times and a seamless user experience.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source project, Highlight.js benefits from community contributions and is free to use, modify, and distribute.

Possible disadvantages of highlight.js

  • Limited Dynamic Features
    Highlight.js is primarily used for static code block highlighting and lacks advanced features like real-time editing or complex code analysis.
  • Manual Updates
    New languages or updates may not be immediately available, requiring users to manually update the library or find alternatives for less common languages.
  • Performance Degradation on Large Files
    Highlight.js may experience performance issues when rendering very large code files, potentially slowing down page load times.
  • Dependency Management
    As with many JavaScript libraries, managing dependencies and ensuring compatibility with other libraries or frameworks can be challenging.

Marked.js features and specs

  • Performance
    Marked.js is known for its speed, being able to compile Markdown to HTML faster than many other libraries due to its efficient parsing and rendering processes.
  • Customization
    Marked.js allows extensive customization. You can modify its default behavior through options and use an event-driven architecture to integrate custom logic during parsing.
  • GitHub Flavored Markdown
    Marked.js supports GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM), which is a very popular dialect of Markdown that includes features like tables, strikethrough, and task lists.
  • Extensibility
    Users can extend Marked.js with plugins to add additional features or modify existing functionality, offering flexibility for developers.

Possible disadvantages of Marked.js

  • Complexity
    Though customizable, Marked.js can be a bit complex for beginners to use effectively, especially when it involves deep customizations or handling edge cases.
  • Security
    Like many Markdown parsers, Marked.js does not sanitize input by default. This means developers must manually sanitize input to prevent XSS vulnerabilities.
  • Bundle Size
    While performant, Marked.js may be larger in size compared to some lightweight Markdown parsers, which could be a consideration for performance-sensitive applications.
  • Learning Curve
    The library can have a steep learning curve for new users, especially for those who are not familiar with Markdown parser internals or Node.js environments.

Category Popularity

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Competitive Intelligence
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Customer Feedback
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SEO
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User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, highlight.js should be more popular than Marked.js. It has been mentiond 55 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.

highlight.js mentions (55)

  • A better pkg.go.dev
    Every time a request come in, we forward it to the pkg.go.dev server, then append the highlight.js script to the response before sending it back to the client. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Day 19: Highlight'em up! 🔖
    It supports 192 languages, just like a browser highlighter:. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • YouTube Embeds Are Bananas Heavy and It's Fixable
    Now we only need to force bloggers to stop using GitHub Gist embeds. Hugo (and probably other static site generators) has built-in support for code snippets with syntax highlighting, and more dynamic sites can rely on highlight.js which removes dependence on third-party services. It's just insane, using heavy iframes for small code snippets. https://gohugo.io/content-management/syntax-highlighting/... - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Glimmer DSL for Web Ruby Integration with JavaScript Libraries
    Glimmer DSL for Web is a Ruby-in-the-Browser Web Frontend Framework that enables Rubyists to finally have Ruby productivity and happiness in the Frontend via a simpler, more intuitive, more straightforward, and more productive library than all JavaScript libraries like React, Angular, Ember, Vue, Svelte, etc.... Glimmer DSL for Web's Rails sample app "Sample Selector" has been upgraded with Code Syntax... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Code Syntax highlighting in Next Js
    Let's get started by installing the highlight js. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
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Marked.js mentions (17)

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What are some alternatives?

When comparing highlight.js and Marked.js, you can also consider the following products

prism.js - Prism is a lightweight, extensible syntax highlighter, built with modern web standards in mind.

Snarkdown - The super fast, 1kb Markdown parser in JavaScript

code-prettify - Code Prettify is an embeddable script that makes source-code snippets in HTML prettier.

Markdown-it - High-speed Markdown parser with 100% CommonMark support, extensions & syntax plugins.

Apache Tika - Apache Tika toolkit detects and extracts metadata and text from different file types.

ShowdownJS - A Markdown to HTML converter written in JavaScript