Trent Richardson
Being the curious mind, have you ever been bouncing around to different javascript frameworks searching for your happy medium? Well I have for the past few years, and I’m still no where near settling with just one. As of late I’ve been in a jQuery groove, but who knows what next week will bring, especially after this startling test by Mootools.
Mootools has previously been known for its silky smooth effects and great dom utilities, but they also have performance on their side as well. jQuery on the other had has to have the friendliest syntax ever with chaining and selectors, with just enough effects to make you hungry for more. I really have to say this makes me frustrated. Just as you get comfortable with a framework something as disturbing as this test comes about.
Well its not at all bad news. I am always looking for something better, but I’m not convinced that mootools is any better at this point. Sure speed is a plus, but whats a millisecond compared to usability? I do like jQuery’s documentation better, as well as the infinite plugins available. For the sake of quality and flexibility though, even if you are situated with one framework, it always pays off to have another framework under your belt. While I don’t foresee this test making many jQuery users abandon their beloved framework, but there will be some splitting time with Mootools…
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18 Responses
Gavin Williams
21|Dec|2007I’m an avid jQuery user too, switched over from mootools last year (not by choice, I had to be dragged kicking and screaming!).
jQuery’s lovely, the coding’s amazing and you can easily write plugins, at the same time it seriously sucks for animation. It really lacks the smoothness mootools offers, you can always tell when a website is using mootools purely from how smooth the effects are.
trent
23|Dec|2007I agree completely. I love mootools smoothness, but jQuery makes it so much easier to code. Guess its all according what you’re doing and to what extent animation is important. This is probably one of the very few areas I would like to see jQuery improve(I’m sure they will)..
jethro
02|Jun|2008You have to test in multiple browsers to be fair. Make sure you’ve hit FF2 FF3 IE6 IE7.
trent
03|Jun|2008Its definitely amazing the difference between browsers. It really shows just how slow IE is and how fast Opera and Safari are.. Firefox has nothing to brag about either by my tests. Goes to show that even the less popular browsers aren’t necessarily the weaker browsers.
David
14|Sep|2008I just thought I would throw in my 2 cents. Generally speaking it seems like people use 1 library or another, and that’s it.
jQuery’s coding structure is nice, chaining and stuff, as is the AJAX etc. I find no single library makes me 100% happy as is the way with most people.
I have a nice thirdparty folder, and in there sits:
1. extjs (extjs.com) for sweet interface tools (grids etc).
2. jsTween (all variations from http://jstween.blogspot.com/) for simple, smooth and fast tweens.
3. jQuery for speed of coding and major library stuff like AJAX and general page manipulation (always using #id-selectors for improved speed).
4. ajax tool box (http://www.ajaxtoolbox.com/) for simple AJAX calls when I don’t want to use jQuery and have the overheads.
Unfortunately I don’t need mootools now because the jsTween is a fraction the size and is so smooth. I just import the files I need from the folder based on a given problem.
Seriously folks, it pays to use a variation, and if you’ve never tried jsTween, go check it out, I’m sold on it.
Dave.
kbo206
02|Feb|2009I tried the test in Firefox 3.0.5 and Dojo was considerably faster than Mootools. And jQuery was just slightly slower than Mootools.
Choose your framework | Miles Per Hour
09|Feb|2009[...] another blog by Trent Richardson (trents blog) he compares jQuery and MooTools ; Mootools has previously been known for its silky smooth effects and great dom utilities, but they [...]
Bimakov
12|May|2009perhaps jQuery is best framework if we look for easy js, it’s support many major browser, but if we’re looking for a good animating js i think mootools is great choices, just consider what u need. if we looking for a productivity i suggest u to choose the easiest way….
trent
12|May|2009I completely agree. You definitely have to examine what you need for each project before committing to a framework.
choncon
27|May|2009Here is other test page, better:
http://owljs.org/speed/
dan
29|May|2009http://owljs.org/speed/ is kinda broken – stopped after 6 tests
FF3 (3.0.10)
EW
26|Jun|2009As a technical recruiter in a very niche space, that being web development in Orange County, I do my best to learn technologies and the differences between them. I really appreciate this blog because currently I am working with the largest employer in Orange County on a very high-end Web 2.0 UI position where Mootools is a MUST.
Many of the front-end Asp.Net developers I’ve spoken to have had exposure to JQUERY, but not Mootools. Do you guys have any suggestions as to where I can find a 6-figure front-end developer with Mootools experience tied to an Asp.Net application?
I really appreciate the thoughts, and think I might start teaching myself light code as a side project!
trent
26|Jun|2009I have a bit of experience with all of the above
Moises
02|Sep|2009IE8: 281;140;793;578;All the tests return errors
FF3.5: 78;76;180;190;37 (with 3 errors)
Chrome: 47;32;267;174;47 (No one returns an error)
kamlesh
25|Aug|2010but it takes a time to code in jquery.
jgarcias
19|Jan|2011I agree with Kamlesh. It took me a while to get used to jQuery syntax and its documentation was not so clear to me.
Anyways, let’s remember that jQuery is a library that grows with every new plugin and widget. It was created thinking of web designers and people with few javascript knowledge to manage the DOM easily and fast. However, jQuery can’t say it behaves the same for all browsers.
On the other hand, mooTools is a Framework created for Web Developers and Programmers in general. It is compact and can reuse code easily by creating classes, it is Object Oriented and its syntax is clear and very specific. If your website requires speed and smoothness without sacrificing performance then definitely the answer is mooTools.
Peter Drinnan
07|Sep|2011I use Joomla and therefore I am stuck with MooTools but I find that a lot of plugins now use jQuery in noConflict mode. without noConflict mode for jQuery I think Joomla would just die off because MooTools is just a a leftover from the past that is still being dragged around by the Joomla core files.
trent
07|Sep|2011I believe in recent time Mootools has hurt itself in a way while trying to innovate. Its difficult for large projects to commit to a framework which has been changing so drastically over the past few releases. While Mootools has been doing some really nice work, especially in terms of inheritance and object orientation, they make it difficult to just drop in the new version and feel confident it will work (without some type of backwards compatibility addition). That being said it may be that Mootools has a completely different objective than jquery, and constant change and innovation is their goal.
I believe it is almost to the point where they need to stop in their tracks and examine where they are. Take all the good stuff, trim the fat, and create a new library. Looking through the documentation there are a lot of similar functions, at some point there has to be overhead and redundancy.
For example the Element object has methods erase, eliminate, empty, dispose, and destroy. While yes, they do different things, to me it ads confusion and 5 different functions with very similar names doing very similar things. Also with: inject, grab, adopt, etc.
I would do a good cleanup of all the methods. Move any core object extensions from More into Core. And leave More with UI type modules. Just my 2 cents…