Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

highlight.js VS reStructuredText

Compare highlight.js VS reStructuredText 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.

reStructuredText logo reStructuredText

Invented for Python documentation.
  • highlight.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-25
  • reStructuredText Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-12-26

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.

reStructuredText features and specs

  • Readability
    reStructuredText offers a clean, readable syntax that resembles plain text, making it easy for humans to read and write without requiring special software.
  • Extensibility
    It permits extensions and custom directives, allowing users to create new functionalities and adaptations specific to their needs.
  • Integration
    It is the default markup language for Python documentation and is naturally supported by Sphinx, which makes it suitable for generating detailed and attractive documentation.
  • Semantic Richness
    reStructuredText supports comprehensive semantic markup structures, enabling detailed annotations and proper structuring of documents.

Possible disadvantages of reStructuredText

  • Complexity
    Learning all of the features of reStructuredText can be complex for beginners due to its wide range of functionalities and strict syntax rules.
  • Limited Adoption
    Compared to Markdown, reStructuredText has a smaller user base and community support, which can limit resources and examples available for new users.
  • Tool Support
    While it is well-supported in Python environments, outside this ecosystem, there are fewer tools and editors that provide full support and previews for reStructuredText.
  • Less Forgiving
    The syntax is more rigid and less forgiving of errors compared to some alternatives like Markdown, which means small mistakes can lead to rendering issues.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to highlight.js and reStructuredText)
App Reviews
100 100%
0% 0
Documentation
0 0%
100% 100
Customer Feedback
100 100%
0% 0
Documentation As A Service & Tools

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, highlight.js should be more popular than reStructuredText. 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 / 3 months ago
  • Day 19: Highlight'em up! 🔖
    It supports 192 languages, just like a browser highlighter:. - Source: dev.to / 5 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 / 10 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 / 12 months 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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reStructuredText mentions (10)

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What are some alternatives?

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

Asklayer - Get real answers from your customers with Asklayers surveys, quizzes, polls and more. Works on any website with zero code and includes enterprise level features such auto-segmentation, user tagging, branching, NPS & CSAT calculation.

Asciidoctor - In the spirit of free software, everyone is encouraged to help improve this project.

Apache Archiva - Apache Archiva is an extensible repository management software.

pandoc - Pandoc is a Haskell library for converting from one markup format to another, and a command-line...

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

Markdown by DaringFireball - Text-to-HTML conversion tool/syntax for web writers, by John Gruber