Comparison of layout engines
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of layout engines. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date. Unless otherwise specified in footnotes, comparisons are based on the stable versions without any add-ons, extensions or external programs.
Contents |
[edit] General information
Basic general information about the engines: creator/company, license, etc.
| Engine | Creator | Software license | Leading application | Programming language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gecko | Netscape/Mozilla Foundation | MPL/GNU GPL/GNU LGPL tri-license | Mozilla Firefox | C++ |
| GtkHTML (Based on KHTML) | GNOME | GNU LGPL | Novell Evolution | C |
| iCab | Alexander Clauss | Proprietary | iCab | ? |
| KHTML | KDE | GNU LGPL | Konqueror | C++ |
| Presto | Opera Software | Proprietary | Opera | C++[1] |
| Prince XML | YesLogic Pty Ltd | Proprietary | Prince XML | Mercury |
| XEP | RenderX | Proprietary | XEP | ? |
| Robin | Ritlabs | Proprietary | The Bat! | ? |
| Tasman | Microsoft | Proprietary | Microsoft Entourage | ? |
| Trident | Microsoft | Proprietary | Internet Explorer | ? |
| WebKit (Based on KHTML) | WebKit Foundation | GNU LGPL, BSD-style | Safari, Google Chrome | C++ |
[edit] Release history
A brief overview of the release history.
| Engine | First public release | First stable release | Latest stable release | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Version | Date | Version | Date | Version | |
| Gecko | 7 December 1998 | "Preview" | 19 March 1999 | M3 | 21 January 2010 | 1.9.2 |
| GtkHTML | 2000 | ? | 2000 | ? | 14 December 2009 | 3.28.2 |
| iCab | 1998 | ? | 1998 | ? | 1 January 2008 | 3.0.5[2] |
| KHTML | October 2000 | ? | October 2000 | ? | 4 August 2009 | 4.3 |
| Presto | 13 November 2002 | 1.0 (Opera 7.0 beta 1) | 28 January 2003 | 1.0 (Opera 7.0) | 1 March 2010 | 2.6.22 |
| Prince XML | April 2003 | 1.0 | April 2003 | 1.0 | October 2009 | 7.0 |
| XEP | 1999 | fo2pdf | December 2009 | 4.17 | ||
| Robin | 27 April 2000 | 1.32 | 27 April 2000 | 1.32 | 24 August 2009 | 4.2.10 |
| Tasman | 27 March 2000 | 0 | 27 March 2000 | 0 | 11 May 2004 | 1.0 |
| Trident | April 1997 | I | October 1997 | I | 19 March 2009 | 4.0 |
| WebKit | 7 January 2003 | 48 | 23 June 2003 | 85 | - | SVN version only |
[edit] Operating system support
The operating systems the engines can run on without emulation.
| Engine | Windows | Mac OS X | Linux | BSD | Unix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gecko | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| GtkHTML | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| iCab | No | Terminated (3.03)[2] | No | No | No |
| KHTML | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Presto | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Prince XML | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| XEP[3] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Robin | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Tasman | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Trident | Yes | Dropped (4.0) | No[4] | No | Dropped (5.0) |
| WebKit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
- Although dropped in current version, older versions of the Gecko layout engine for Mac OS 8.6 and Mac OS 9 are still available for download from Netscape's Archived Products site. An updated port of the Mozilla Application Suite for classic Mac OS systems is maintained as Classilla.
- Most of WebKit runs natively on Windows, Safari 3.1 provides support for previously non-ported features such as SVG, Canvas, and plugins.
[edit] WebKit notes
Linux, Unix, Windows, and Mac OS X support are also available with Qt 4.3 in the public WebKit SVN repository.
[edit] References
- ^ Lextrait, Vincent (January 2010). "The Programming Languages Beacon, v10.0". http://www.lextrait.com/Vincent/implementations.html. Retrieved 4 January 2010.
- ^ a b The iCab 4 browser uses the WebKit engine - iCab 3.0.5 was the final release of the Carbon (API)-based iCab engine "iCab 4 Abandons Support for the Classic Mac OS". http://lowendmac.com/thomas/08tt/icab-drops-classic-mac-os.html. Retrieved 2009-04-30.
- ^ XEP is written in Java, with a dedicated release line for Windows.
- ^ Through the use of the Wine Libraries some version of IE can be started."Beta - IEs4Linux". Tatanka.com.br. http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Beta. Retrieved 2008-10-17.
[edit] See also
|
|||||||||||