Backbone.js vs. FastScript vs. Preact vs. jQuery Comparison Chart

Backbone.js gives structure to web applications by providing models with key-value binding and custom events, collections with a rich API of enumerable functions, views with declarative event handling, and connects it all to your existing API over a RESTful JSON interface. When working on a web application that involves a lot of JavaScript, one of the first things you learn is to stop tying your data to the DOM. It's all too easy to create JavaScript applications that end up as tangled piles of jQuery selectors and callbacks, all trying frantically to keep data in sync between the HTML UI, your JavaScript logic, and the database on your server. For rich client-side applications, a more structured approach is often helpful. With Backbone, you represent your data as Models, which can be created, validated, destroyed, and saved to the server.

Preact provides the thinnest possible Virtual DOM abstraction on top of the DOM. It builds on stable platform features, registers real event handlers and plays nicely with other libraries. Most UI frameworks are large enough to be the majority of an app's JavaScript size. Preact is different: it's small enough that your code is the largest part of your application. That means less JavaScript to download, parse and execute - leaving more time for your code, so you can build an experience you define without fighting to keep a framework under control. Preact is fast, and not just because of its size. It's one of the fastest Virtual DOM libraries out there, thanks to a simple and predictable diff implementation. We automatically batch updates and tune Preact to the extreme when it comes to performance. We work closely with browser engineers to get the maximum performance possible out of Preact.