Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

mxGraph VS Backbone.js

Compare mxGraph VS Backbone.js and see what are their differences

mxGraph logo mxGraph

mxGraph is a fully client side JavaScript diagramming library - jgraph/mxgraph

Backbone.js logo Backbone.js

Give your JS App some Backbone with Models, Views, Collections, and Events
  • mxGraph Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-07
  • Backbone.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-09-30

mxGraph features and specs

  • Open Source
    mxGraph is an open-source project, which allows developers to use, modify, and distribute the library freely.
  • Cross-Platform
    The library is designed to work seamlessly across multiple platforms (e.g., web browsers, desktop), providing flexibility in application deployment.
  • Rich Feature Set
    mxGraph provides a comprehensive set of features for building interactive diagramming applications, including support for drag-and-drop, undo/redo, zoom, and layout algorithms.
  • Lightweight
    Despite its rich feature set, mxGraph is relatively lightweight, which can yield better performance in terms of speed and resource usage.
  • Good Documentation
    mxGraph offers extensive documentation, making it easier for developers to understand and implement features in their projects.

Possible disadvantages of mxGraph

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Due to its extensive feature set and flexibility, mxGraph might have a steep learning curve for developers who are new to the library.
  • Limited Community Support
    Compared to more mainstream libraries, mxGraph may have a smaller community, potentially limiting the availability of community-based support and resources.
  • Legacy Codebase
    Some parts of mxGraph's codebase may be considered outdated, particularly as newer technologies and frameworks have emerged since its initial development.
  • Complex Customization
    While mxGraph offers powerful customization capabilities, achieving specific custom behaviors and styles can be complex without in-depth knowledge of the library.
  • Sparse Ecosystem
    As a specialized library, it may have fewer third-party plugins and extensions compared to more widely-adopted graph libraries.

Backbone.js features and specs

  • Lightweight
    Backbone.js is minimal and lightweight, which means it has a small footprint and adds very little overhead to your project.
  • Flexibility
    Backbone.js provides a flexible structure to developers by allowing them to build their own MVC or MVP architectures using models, views, collections, and routers.
  • Ease of Integration
    Backbone.js can be easily integrated with other libraries and frameworks, such as jQuery or underscore.js, enhancing its capabilities without much difficulty.
  • Large Community
    Backbone.js has been around for a long time, resulting in a large community and a plethora of plugins and extensions that can be leveraged.
  • Detailed Documentation
    The official site offers comprehensive documentation which includes tutorials, examples, and a detailed API reference, aiding developers to understand and utilize the library efficiently.

Possible disadvantages of Backbone.js

  • Steeper Learning Curve
    New developers might find Backbone.js difficult to learn due to its non-opinionated nature and lack of enforced structure.
  • Sparse In-Built Features
    Backbone.js provides only the basic building blocks, requiring developers to write more boilerplate code or rely on external libraries for additional functionalities.
  • Outdated
    As newer frameworks and libraries (like React, Vue, and Angular) have emerged with more robust features and better performance, Backbone.js has somewhat fallen out of favor in modern development practices.
  • Event Binding Complexity
    Managing event bindings in Backbone.js can become complex and sometimes messy in large applications, which can lead to difficult maintenance and debugging.
  • Limited Two-Way Data Binding
    Backbone.js does not provide two-way data binding out-of-the-box, unlike other frameworks such as Angular, necessitating additional code to sync views and models.

mxGraph videos

mxGraph Made Easy 3

Backbone.js videos

Introduction to Backbone.js

More videos:

  • Review - Introduction to Backbone.js
  • Review - Backbone.js Code Review w Backbone.js Mentor Jonathon

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to mxGraph and Backbone.js)
Javascript UI Libraries
22 22%
78% 78
JavaScript Framework
0 0%
100% 100
Flowcharts
100 100%
0% 0
Development
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using mxGraph and Backbone.js. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

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

mxGraph Reviews

20+ JavaScript libraries to draw your own diagrams (2022 edition)
mxGraph uses no third-party software, it requires no plugins and can be integrated into virtually any framework. The mxGraph package contains a client software, written in JavaScript, and a series of backends for various languages. The client software is a graph component with an optional application wrapper that is integrated into an existing web interface. The client...

Backbone.js Reviews

20 Next.js Alternatives Worth Considering
A veteran on the scene, Backbone.js is all about giving structure to your JavaScript-heavy applications. It’s standing the test of time, enabling you to keep your data logic and display logic neatly side by side, all while being lightweight.
9 Best JavaScript Frameworks to Use in 2023
Backbone.js is based on the Model View Controller (MVC) design pattern. The library supports seven components: Models, Views, Collections, Routers, Events, Sync, and Options. Backbone.js also provides an asynchronous communication layer that allows the application to communicate with a backend service.
Source: ninetailed.io
JavaScript: What Are The Most Used Frameworks For This Language?
Backbone.JS is a lightweight JavaScript library that provides a framework for developing structured and scalable web applications. It offers a set of tools for building client-side applications that interact with RESTful APIs. Backbone.JS is well-suited for developing single-page applications (SPAs) where most of the user interface is rendered in the browser, rather than...
Source: www.bocasay.com
20 Best JavaScript Frameworks For 2023
Backbone.js is a JavaScript-based framework that connects to an API via a RESTful JSON interface. Backbone.js is known for being small and light because it only requires jQuery and one JavaScript library, Underscore.js, to use the entire library.
Top JavaScript Frameworks For Mobile App Development
Backbone JS is a JavaScript framework based on the MVP app design. As the name suggests, it acts as a strong backbone to your project. It is lightweight in nature and hence, is considered ideal for developing single-page applications. It offers a simplistic frontend and makes the best use of JavaScript functions.
Source: medium.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Backbone.js should be more popular than mxGraph. It has been mentiond 17 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.

mxGraph mentions (2)

  • Process Analytics - March 2022 News
    It is possible to use the new API to retrieve the bpmn-visualization and mxGraph versions used at runtime: getVersion(). - Source: dev.to / about 3 years ago
  • mxGraph usage in TypeScript projects
    This article is the first one of a series about mxGraph, the Javascript diagramming library. - Source: dev.to / almost 4 years ago

Backbone.js mentions (17)

  • JavaScript Views, the Hard Way – A Pattern for Writing UI
    Https://backbonejs.org/#View There is also a github repo that has examples of MVC patterns adapted to the web platform. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 month ago
  • JavaScript evolution: From Lodash and Underscore to vanilla
    Underscore was created by Jeremy Ashkenas (the creator of Backbone.js) in 2009 to provide a set of utility functions that JavaScript lacked at the time. It was also created to work with Backbone.js, but it slowly became a favorite among developers who needed utility functions that they could just call and get stuff done with without having to worry about the inner implementations and browser compatibility. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • React is 10 years old
    Got it thanks for the context. I've read the web app and it seems to me it is just https://backbonejs.org/ re-written in Typescript and allows JSX. I'm very certain Typescript and JSX will have improved the DX for Backbone like apps, but it doesn't address all of the other issues that teams had with Backbone. e.g. Cyclical event propagation, state stored in the DOM (i.e. Appendchild is error prone in large code... - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Just Simply – Stop saying how simple things are in our docs
    Even further nowadays, docs are created using Docusaurus. I don't have problem with it but documentation should be good (eye) friendly than easy to write. Why not be creative while writing docs such as - Backbone.js - https://backbonejs.org Or https://backbonejs.org/docs/backbone.html as code annotation. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • The Emperor's New Library
    What we see, a decade ago, are that many of the "popular" libraries, frameworks, and methods, not surprisingly, have gone by the wayside, a lot that have remained in current code as difficult-to-removemodernize legacy cruft (Bower, Gulp, Grunt, Backbone, Angular 1, ...), and then we have the small minority that are still here. Some that remain have had their utility lessened/questioned by platform and language... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing mxGraph and Backbone.js, you can also consider the following products

GoJS - GoJS is a JavaScript library for building interactive diagrams on HTML web pages. Build apps with flowcharts, org charts, BPMN, UML, modeling, and other visual graph types.

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

jsPlumb - jsPlumb is an advanced, standards-compliant and easy to use JS library for building connectivity based applications, such as flowcharts, process flow diagrams, sequence diagrams, organisation charts, etc. More than just a diagram library.

ExpressJS - Sinatra inspired web development framework for node.js -- insanely fast, flexible, and simple

Konva - Konva is 2d Canvas JavaScript framework for drawings shapes, animations, node nesting, layering, filtering, event handling, drag and drop and much more.

ember.js - A JavaScript framework for creating ambitious web apps