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Leaflet VS CodePen

Compare Leaflet VS CodePen and see what are their differences

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Leaflet logo Leaflet

Leaflet is a modern, lightweight open-source JavaScript library for mobile-friendly interactive maps.

CodePen logo CodePen

A front end web development playground.
  • Leaflet Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-13
  • CodePen Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-09-30

Leaflet features and specs

  • Lightweight
    Leaflet is designed to be easy on resources, making it fast to load and suitable for performance-critical applications.
  • Ease of Use
    The API is straightforward and well-documented, which makes it accessible for developers of all experience levels.
  • Open Source
    Being open-source means it is free to use and has a collaborative community contributing to its improvement.
  • Extensible
    Leaflet supports a wide range of plugins for additional functionality, allowing for customization and extension based on specific requirements.
  • Support for Mobile
    Leaflet is optimized for mobile browsers and touch devices, including multi-touch support.
  • Customizable
    It allows for extensive customization with a variety of map projections, tile layers, and interactive overlays.

Possible disadvantages of Leaflet

  • Limited Built-in Features
    Compared to some other mapping libraries, Leaflet has fewer built-in features out of the box.
  • Performance with Large Data Sets
    Rendering large data sets (such as many markers or complex geometries) can impact performance.
  • Steeper Learning Curve for Advanced Customization
    While basic use is straightforward, more advanced customizations can be challenging and may require deeper knowledge of JavaScript and Leaflet's architecture.
  • Limited 3D Support
    Leaflet is primarily designed for 2D maps, and doesn't natively support 3D visualizations, which may be a limitation for some applications.
  • Dependence on Third-party Services
    For certain functionalities like tile layers, geocoding, and routing, you may need to rely on third-party services, which can involve additional costs and dependencies.

CodePen features and specs

  • Real-time Collaboration
    Developers can collaborate with others in real-time, making it easy to work on projects with teammates or seek help from the community.
  • Immediate Visual Feedback
    CodePen allows you to see the results of your code as you write it, which is highly beneficial for learning and debugging.
  • Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
    CodePen provides a comfortable and feature-rich online IDE environment with syntax highlighting, autocomplete, and more.
  • Community-Driven
    Users can share their work with the CodePen community, receive feedback, and explore a wide range of projects created by others.
  • Extensive Resources
    CodePen offers a wealth of examples and templates for various web development tasks, making it a useful resource for learning and inspiration.
  • Cross-Device Accessibility
    Being an online platform, CodePen can be accessed from any device with an internet connection, making it convenient for developers on the move.

Possible disadvantages of CodePen

  • Limited Offline Functionality
    Since CodePen is primarily an online tool, it requires an internet connection for most of its features to work, limiting its usefulness in offline environments.
  • Performance Constraints
    Complex or resource-intensive projects may not perform as well on CodePen as they would in a full-fledged local development environment.
  • Subscription Costs
    While many features are free, advanced functionalities and additional storage options require a paid subscription, which may not be ideal for all users.
  • Limited Backend Capabilities
    CodePen is primarily designed for front-end development, so it offers limited support for backend technologies, making it less suitable for full-stack or server-side development.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing dependencies and libraries can be cumbersome compared to local development environments which have better tools for this purpose, like npm.
  • Security Concerns
    Sharing projects with the public can expose your code and assets to unauthorized use, posing potential intellectual property and security risks.

Leaflet videos

leaflet review

More videos:

  • Review - Labour Party Leaflet Review
  • Demo - Liberal Democrats Party Leaflet Review

CodePen videos

What Is Codepen?

More videos:

  • Review - Learn to use CodePen from a co-founder of CodePen
  • Review - Using CodePen For Inspiration & Learning

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Leaflet and CodePen)
Maps
100 100%
0% 0
Text Editors
0 0%
100% 100
Web Mapping
100 100%
0% 0
Programming
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 Leaflet and CodePen

Leaflet Reviews

Top 15 Price Monitoring Tools For E-Commerce In 2022
Leaflet.js is the most popular open-source JavaScript library for providing mobile-friendly interactive maps. With a simple, easy-to-use interface, it is the perfect solution for all of your data management needs. It operates well right out of the box on all major platforms and devices. The platform offers the following services:
Source: adscale.com
Top 5 Open-Source Google Maps Alternatives in 2022
The Leaflet is another open source interactive maps software that comes with self-hosting capabilities. This map application is lightweight and easy to use. Above all, it is available for all desktop and mobile platforms such as Android, IOS, and web. Further, this offline maps app is highly extensible and offers a well-documented API for third-party integrations. This open...
The Best Data Visualization Tools - Top 30 BI Software
Leaflet leverages OpenStreetMap data and adds HTML5/CSS3 visualizations and interactivity on top to ensure everything is responsive and mobile ready. Its extensive plugin repository lets you add heatmaps , masks and animated markers. Leaflet is open source JavaScript library designed for creating interactive mobile-friendly maps and ships at only 33kb. This Javascript...
Source: improvado.io
Farewell, Google Maps
On a positive note we were impressed by the quality of open source code for operating maps (Leaflet). Some advanced functions which we had implement ourselves on Google side were readily available in Leaflet.
Survey of the Best Online Mapping Tools for Web Developers: The Roadmap to Roadmaps
It is safe to say that Leaflet was born as a reaction to OpenLayers’ bloat, clutter and complexity. Vladimir Agafonkin was asked to build a wrapper around OpenLayers, but he instead created a simple and lightweight OpenLayers alternative, and in May 2011 Leaflet was born. Vladimir focused on simplicity, performance and usability for this online map tool. The core library...
Source: www.toptal.com

CodePen Reviews

Best Forums for Developers to Join in 2025
Codepen is a social network for developers to show off their work, ask and answer questions, and exchange ideas. It's like a Reddit for coding and design, with a large community of talented web developers.
Source: www.notchup.com
Top 10 Developer Communities You Should Explore
Codepen is a social development environment that allows developers to showcase their work and experiment with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in a collaborative space. Codepen’s focus on visual and interactive development makes it an excellent community for front-end developers and designers.
Source: www.qodo.ai
8 Best Replit Alternatives & Competitors in 2022 (Free & Paid) - Software Discover
Codepen is a social development environment for front-end designers and developers. Build and deploy a website, show off your work, build test cases to learn.
Best Online Code Editors For Web Developers
Probably the most popular online code editor. CodePen is fast, easy to use, and allows a web developer to write and share HTML/CSS/JS code online.
Source: techarge.in
Top 25 websites for coding challenge and competition [Updated for 2021]
CodePen is a cool online IDE that allows you to write code in your browser and see the result just as you build it. CodePen challenges is a place for leveling up your skills by building things. Each week, new challenges appear for you to tackle, and the best “Pens” get picked.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, CodePen should be more popular than Leaflet. It has been mentiond 503 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.

Leaflet mentions (134)

  • Building a Location-Based App with Appwrite
    React Leaflet because we’re using React and Leaflet is an open source mobile friendly maps library with lots of plugins. - Source: dev.to / 4 days ago
  • Understanding Mapbox API Integration: A Deep Dive
    Leaflet with OpenStreetMap: Cost-effective open-source solution with no vendor lock-in, lightweight JavaScript library perfect for basic mapping needs, though lacking some advanced features found in commercial options. - Source: dev.to / 18 days ago
  • Data viz library built with Apache ECharts, Leaflet, and shadcn
    This is a terrible title. Info on what leaflet.js is here: https://leafletjs.com/. Took me a lot longer than I'd like to find that, and I'm still not sure what it has to do with the majority of those examples. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 month ago
  • Show HN: Leaflet.pub a web app for delightful documents
    Just as an FYI: "leaflet" is the name of a popular web mapping JS library. https://leafletjs.com/ May or may not be relevant for you, but if you're releasing client libraries of any sort, it might be good to be aware of. Either way, looks nifty!! - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • The Tools and APIs That Made My GeoGuessr 🌍 Project Possible
    For the map interface, I chose Leaflet.js. It’s an open-source JavaScript library for interactive maps. I liked it because it’s lightweight and easy to use. With Leaflet, I could display the map, add markers, and let users interact with it seamlessly. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
View more

CodePen mentions (503)

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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Leaflet and CodePen, you can also consider the following products

jQuery - The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library.

JSFiddle - Test your JavaScript, CSS, HTML or CoffeeScript online with JSFiddle code editor.

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

CodeSandbox - Online playground for React

Babel - Babel is a compiler for writing next generation JavaScript.

GitHub - Originally founded as a project to simplify sharing code, GitHub has grown into an application used by over a million people to store over two million code repositories, making GitHub the largest code host in the world.