Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Markdown by DaringFireball VS highlight.js

Compare Markdown by DaringFireball VS highlight.js and see what are their differences

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Markdown by DaringFireball logo Markdown by DaringFireball

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

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.
  • Markdown by DaringFireball Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-02
  • highlight.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-25

Markdown by DaringFireball features and specs

  • Simplicity
    Markdown is designed to be lightweight and easy to write. The syntax is intuitive and resembles plain text formatting, which makes it accessible to both technical and non-technical users.
  • Readability
    Because it is plain text, Markdown is inherently human-readable even without rendering. This makes it easier for people to collaborate on documents without the need for complex tools.
  • Portability
    Markdown files are plain text, making them highly portable. They can be opened, edited, and shared across different operating systems and platforms without compatibility issues.
  • Integrations
    Markdown is widely supported and integrated across various platforms, including GitHub, Bitbucket, and Jekyll, as well as a variety of text editors and blogging tools. This allows for seamless workflow integration.
  • Version Control
    Due to its plain text nature, Markdown works exceptionally well with version control systems like Git. This makes tracking changes, merging, and diffs straightforward.

Possible disadvantages of Markdown by DaringFireball

  • Limited Formatting
    Markdown does not support all possible formatting options. Complex layouts and advanced styling, which are easily achievable in HTML or Word processors, can be difficult or impossible to implement.
  • Inconsistent Implementations
    There are many variations and extensions of Markdown, which can lead to inconsistencies in how Markdown files are rendered by different tools and platforms. This can cause compatibility issues.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While the basic syntax is simple, more advanced features like tables, footnotes, or embedded HTML may require additional learning and do not always have a consistent syntax across implementations.
  • Dependency on Rendering Tools
    Markdown needs to be processed and rendered into other formats (e.g., HTML) to be useful in many contexts. This means users often depend on specific tools or services to visualize their Markdown content.
  • Lack of Standardization
    Without a formal standard, Markdown can vary in implementation from one parser to another. This lack of standardization can lead to issues with document portability and consistency.

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.

Category Popularity

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Markdown Editor
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App Reviews
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Text Editors
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0% 0
Customer Feedback
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User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Markdown by DaringFireball should be more popular than highlight.js. It has been mentiond 87 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.

Markdown by DaringFireball mentions (87)

  • How To Build and Host a Gatsby Blog
    Markdown is a common syntax for writing that is easily converted into HTML. You can read more about markdown from its creator here. Each blog post file you put in this blog folder will be converted to HTML and rendered on your site. Right now, there are three posts in the folder. Delete two of them and keep one (doesn’t matter which you pick). It should be noted that Gatsby expects each blog post to be represented... - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Add content to your site: Markdown 📝
    Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format and Astro includes built-in support for Markdown files. In this way you can build your personal blog and any other kinds of projects. In this article we will go to see the features 🎊 Let's start! 🤙. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • TextBundle
    But what does "net.daringfireball.markdown" mean? Does it mean "parse it using the 1.0.1 Perl script from 2004 on https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ "? - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • TextBundle
    Something that isn’t clear to me from this spec http://textbundle.org/spec/ is the exact format of Markdown that should be used here. I was under the impression that the Gruber original at https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ wasn’t well enough specified (unless you want to treat a 20 year old Perl script as a specification) to be interoperable - hence efforts like https://commonmark.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Markdown Is Meant to Be Shown: Stop Hiding the Syntax (2021)
    > if I would take your copyrighted work https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ >Markdown is free software, available under a BSD-style open source license. John Gruber's markdown is unmaintained (last updated in 2004), free software, which many people have contributed to to fix oversights and extend its capabilities. This is exactly how fsf is supposed to work. - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
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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
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Markdown by DaringFireball and highlight.js, you can also consider the following products

Typora - A minimal Markdown reading & writing app.

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.

StackEdit - Full-featured, open-source Markdown editor based on PageDown, the Markdown library used by Stack Overflow and the other Stack Exchange sites.

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

MarkdownPad - MarkdownPad is a full-featured Markdown editor for Windows. Features:

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