Quick comparison of these frameworks for a new web app I'm writing (note that these frameworks are rapidly evolving so what is below is only valid as of the creation date of this article obviously).  This is a summary of features (though Vert.x isn't really a web framework...it's mostly the foundation on which you can put frameworks on via its event bus so it'll depend a lot on what modules are available for the language you use in Vert.x).

Feature	Meteor.js	Derby.js	Vert.x
Language	Javascript	Javascript	Polyglot: Java, Javascript, CoffeeScript Ruby, Groovy, Python (will support Scala and Clojure)
Decent examples	*great* examples of typical web apps with lots of dynamic UI; excellent documentation		Good core examples and one good shopping cart/auth example
Package management	Custom meteor wrapper and can use most (not ones w/ heavy dependencies) Node.js modules by going into the app/server directory and using npm	Uses node.js' standard npm package manager	Uses vertx package manager
Server-side templating	does view generation on client	Best at this so client-side loads are very fast	Mustache module for JS, Groovy has built-in templating. No templating for other languages built-in AFAIK
Web crawlable output	Yes, added recently	Yes (side effect of server-side templating)	Yes (Mustache/Groovy output HTML)
Event bus	Yes	Yes	Yes
Uses multiple CPU cores	Yes, but needs one instance per core (Node.js limitation)	Yes, but needs one instance per core (Node.js limitation)	Yes (Java engine underneath uses all CPUs)
OAuth Authentication	Built in OAuth module	Yes, but you have to code it using Node.js' Passport module	No, though can be done using scribe-java
DB Authentication	Built in, including password recovery	Partially in...EveryAuth module will be added eventually	Built-in, but no password recovery
Default DB	MongoDB	MongoDB	MongoDB
Easy to Replace DB	No, because MongoDB API is exposed at browser	Yes	Yes
Offline DB Conflict Resolution	No	Work in Progress	No
Dynamic DOM binding	One way, renders entire DOM that needs updating	Two way, renders partial DOM as needed when changes made on client	Not a web framework
DOM Event Handlers	CSS reference	HTML attributes in templates	Not a web framework

I think the quick summary is that Meteor.js is the easiest to use as a complete web framework. Performance with Derby.js and Vert.x is better but they seem to be less complete packages at this time.

References:
http://www.slideshare.net/studgeek/an-overview-of-derbyjs-and-meteorjs-for-the-nova-nodejs-meetup
http://blog.derbyjs.com/2012/04/14/our-take-on-derby-vs-meteor/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10390619/derbyjs-and-authentication
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3948727
http://www.jinspired.com/site/a-preliminary-performance-analysis-of-the-vert-x-vs-node-js-http-benchmark
https://github.com/pmlopes/bson.vertx.eventbus

1. Kynao03/24/2014 19:15:25

Excellent. Thanks for this kind of head to head, very useful.
Can it be updated to now ?
Are you interested into suggestions for adding rows into this table ?

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2. ken02/27/2013 16:04:05

@Tony:
Firebase is actually looks more exposed than Meteor is. With Meteor, you can force all updates to be done via server methods where you can use JS business logic to validate things. When you update subscribed MongoDB collections on the server, the data gets pushed down to the web client. It's not too bad, but you do have to be careful that you don't publish too much info down to the client.

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3. Tony02/26/2013 08:37:38

Nice comparison. You could add firebase into the pack.

My concerns with Meteor and Firebase are that they're exposing the DB API out to the world, and anyone could take advantage of that.
Also, they're quite rigid with the chosen DB.

cheers,
T

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