A common complaint about jQuery Mobile is the size and speed. By giving up support of legacy browsers, frameworks like jQ.Mobi (aka jqmobi) and Zepto claim smaller footprints and superior performance. According to most benchmarks I’ve seen like this one, jQ.Mobi delivers while Zepto falls short of it’s performance claims. Also, jQ.Mobi claims support for IE9 and IE10. For these reasons, I decided to give jQ.Mobi a shot.
To create a fair comparison, I recreated last post‘s jQuery Mobile demo using the jQ.Mobi+jQ.Ui framework. Getting started with jQ.Ui is harder than it should be, especially since being acquired by Intel. On the bright side though, it’s still open source and the developer is very friendly on GitHub. The best way to start with jQ.Ui is to pull down the jQ.Mobi git repo and point your browser to the jQ.Ui kitchen sink. From there, you can explore most of the features jQ.Ui has to offer. I started this demo with the example project.
My overall impression with jQ.Ui is good and bad. I confirmed every claim of performance and size. My demo is footprint is tiny, very noticeably faster on both newer and older devices, and compatibility with mobile phones is superb. I’d go so far to say that compatibility on phones is even better than jQuery Mobile. On the other hand, jQuery Mobile is a lot easier to develop on because 1) The documentation is awesome, 2) the library of built in gadgets is much bigger, 3) customizing and theming is much more intuitive, 4) RIB will get you up and running wicked fast.
So for the time being, I’ll prototype with jQuery Mobile and move to jQ.Mobi if the extra work is warranted later. Check out my jQ.Mobi demo here!
Hi Brian,
I’m the creator/lead of App Framework. Few things I want to note below. *note* they are my own views and do not represent Intel’s views.
1) I agree with your points ;). 2.0 has better documentation (will be out soon), but we are opening it up so the community can help with that part too.
2) I agree with that, but we’ve got something up our sleeves.
3) I personally am not a fan of the App Framework theme . I lost the battle on that front, but 2.0 is much better (default native themes) and much easier to modify. But at the same time, a JQM app looks like a JQM app. There are a bunch of apps built with App Framework that look completely different (Zeepeel and College Prowler are an example)
4) 😉
Thanks for the impartial review though. It helps me justify any decisions I have. This is a back burner project for me at Intel, so it’s still one man against all the other frameworks.
Ian, I’m a fan! Thanks for replying and all your hard work!
Ian, can you tell me when you release the 2.0 version aprox?
jQ.UI v2.0 is out now!
Hi Ian, do you have the links to Zeepeel and College Prowler? Tried to find them, but http://zeepeel.com does not work, and http://collegeprowler.com has no mobile version as far as I can see… Keep up the good work!
Regards,
Serge
Found it! Is the app in the apple app store called college prowler.
Hi Brian,
I cant find the jQ.Ui demos / kitchen sink either on the git repo or online { including http://app-framework-software.intel.com/index.php & https://www.google.gr/search?q=jQ+mobi+((kitchen+sink)+OR+demo) }
I remember I saw a v1.x demo online about a week ago – Are you in the process of updating it to v2.0?
Could you please have the v1.x available so we can evaluate ?
jQ.UI v2.0 is out now!