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highlightjs logohighlight.js

JavaScript syntax highlighter with language auto-detection and zero dependencies.

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Quick Overview

Highlight.js is a popular syntax highlighting library for the web. It automatically detects the language of code snippets and applies appropriate syntax highlighting, supporting over 190 languages and 100 styles. The library works both on the client-side and server-side.

Pros

  • Language auto-detection
  • Wide range of supported languages and styles
  • Easy integration with various frameworks and platforms
  • Customizable and extensible

Cons

  • Can be relatively large in file size, especially when including many languages
  • May have performance impact on large code blocks or many snippets on a single page
  • Some less common languages may have incomplete or imperfect highlighting
  • Occasional false positives in language detection for ambiguous code snippets

Code Examples

  1. Basic usage:
<pre><code class="language-python">
def greet(name):
    print(f"Hello, {name}!")

greet("World")
</code></pre>

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/highlight.js/11.7.0/highlight.min.js"></script>
<script>hljs.highlightAll();</script>
  1. Custom initialization with specific languages:
hljs.configure({languages: ['javascript', 'ruby', 'python']});
hljs.highlightAll();
  1. Programmatic highlighting:
const code = `function add(a, b) {
  return a + b;
}`;
const result = hljs.highlight(code, {language: 'javascript'});
console.log(result.value);

Getting Started

  1. Include the library in your HTML:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/highlight.js/11.7.0/styles/default.min.css">
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/highlight.js/11.7.0/highlight.min.js"></script>
  1. Add code snippets to your HTML:
<pre><code class="language-javascript">
console.log('Hello, World!');
</code></pre>
  1. Initialize highlighting:
<script>
  hljs.highlightAll();
</script>

Competitor Comparisons

highlightjs logo

highlight.js

23,527

JavaScript syntax highlighter with language auto-detection and zero dependencies.

Pros of highlight.js

  • Widely adopted and well-maintained syntax highlighting library
  • Supports a large number of programming languages and markup formats
  • Automatic language detection for easier implementation

Cons of highlight.js

  • Larger file size compared to some alternatives
  • May require additional configuration for optimal performance in complex applications

Code Comparison

Both repositories are the same, so there's no code comparison to make. Here's a sample usage of highlight.js:

document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', (event) => {
  document.querySelectorAll('pre code').forEach((el) => {
    hljs.highlightElement(el);
  });
});

Additional Notes

The comparison requested is between the same repository (highlightjs/highlight.js). Therefore, there are no differences to highlight. highlight.js is a popular syntax highlighting library used in many web applications and documentation sites. It offers easy integration and a wide range of supported languages, making it a versatile choice for developers looking to add code highlighting to their projects.

PrismJS logo

prism

12,224

Lightweight, robust, elegant syntax highlighting.

Pros of Prism

  • Lighter weight and faster performance
  • More extensive language support out-of-the-box
  • Better customization options with plugins and themes

Cons of Prism

  • Less mature and potentially less stable
  • Smaller community and fewer third-party integrations
  • Manual language detection required in some cases

Code Comparison

Prism:

Prism.highlightAll();

Highlight.js:

hljs.highlightAll();

Both libraries offer similar ease of use for basic syntax highlighting. However, Prism provides more granular control over which elements to highlight:

Prism:

Prism.highlightAllUnder(document.querySelector('#my-code'));

Highlight.js:

document.querySelectorAll('#my-code pre code').forEach(el => {
  hljs.highlightElement(el);
});

While both libraries are popular choices for syntax highlighting, Prism tends to be favored for its lightweight nature and extensive customization options. Highlight.js, on the other hand, is often praised for its stability and automatic language detection capabilities. The choice between the two often depends on specific project requirements and personal preferences.

codemirror logo

codemirror5

26,768

In-browser code editor (version 5, legacy)

Pros of CodeMirror 5

  • Full-featured code editor with advanced functionality like syntax highlighting, auto-completion, and line numbering
  • Highly customizable and extensible through plugins and add-ons
  • Supports a wide range of programming languages and file formats

Cons of CodeMirror 5

  • Larger file size and potentially higher resource usage compared to Highlight.js
  • Steeper learning curve for implementation and customization
  • May be overkill for simple syntax highlighting needs

Code Comparison

Highlight.js:

<pre><code class="language-javascript">
function greet(name) {
  console.log(`Hello, ${name}!`);
}
</code></pre>

CodeMirror 5:

var editor = CodeMirror.fromTextArea(document.getElementById("code"), {
  lineNumbers: true,
  mode: "javascript",
  theme: "monokai"
});

CodeMirror 5 offers a more comprehensive solution for code editing and highlighting, while Highlight.js focuses primarily on syntax highlighting. CodeMirror 5 provides a full-featured editor experience with additional functionality, but it comes at the cost of increased complexity and resource usage. Highlight.js is simpler to implement and lighter-weight, making it a better choice for basic syntax highlighting needs. The choice between the two depends on the specific requirements of your project and the level of functionality you need.

syntaxhighlighter logo

syntaxhighlighter

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SyntaxHighlighter is a fully functional self-contained code syntax highlighter developed in JavaScript.

Pros of SyntaxHighlighter

  • More customizable styling options
  • Supports line numbering out of the box
  • Allows for easier integration of custom language definitions

Cons of SyntaxHighlighter

  • Larger file size and potentially slower performance
  • Less frequent updates and maintenance
  • Requires more setup and configuration

Code Comparison

SyntaxHighlighter:

<pre class="brush: js">
function greet(name) {
  console.log("Hello, " + name + "!");
}
greet("World");
</pre>

highlight.js:

<pre><code class="language-javascript">
function greet(name) {
  console.log("Hello, " + name + "!");
}
greet("World");
</code></pre>

Summary

SyntaxHighlighter offers more built-in features and customization options, making it suitable for projects requiring specific styling or advanced functionality. However, it comes at the cost of a larger file size and potentially slower performance. highlight.js, on the other hand, is lighter, faster, and more frequently updated, making it a better choice for simpler implementations or projects prioritizing performance. The choice between the two depends on the specific needs of your project and the level of customization required.

shikijs logo

shiki

9,701

A beautiful yet powerful syntax highlighter

Pros of Shiki

  • Provides more accurate syntax highlighting by using VS Code's TextMate grammar
  • Supports a wider range of languages and themes out of the box
  • Generates HTML with pre-applied CSS classes, resulting in faster rendering

Cons of Shiki

  • Larger bundle size due to including TextMate grammars
  • Slower initial parsing compared to Highlight.js
  • Less customizable for adding new languages or modifying existing ones

Code Comparison

Highlight.js:

hljs.highlightElement(document.querySelector('pre code'));

Shiki:

const shiki = require('shiki');

shiki.getHighlighter({
  theme: 'nord'
}).then(highlighter => {
  const code = highlighter.codeToHtml(myCode, { lang: 'js' });
});

Both Highlight.js and Shiki are popular syntax highlighting libraries, but they take different approaches. Highlight.js uses regex-based parsing and is more lightweight, while Shiki leverages VS Code's TextMate grammars for more accurate highlighting. Shiki offers better out-of-the-box support for various languages and themes, but comes with a larger bundle size and slower initial parsing. Highlight.js is more customizable and easier to extend with new languages. The choice between the two depends on the specific needs of your project, balancing accuracy, performance, and customization requirements.

rouge-ruby logo

rouge

3,322

A pure Ruby code highlighter that is compatible with Pygments

Pros of Rouge

  • Written in Ruby, making it easier to integrate with Ruby-based projects
  • Supports a wider range of languages (over 200)
  • Designed for server-side syntax highlighting, which can be more efficient for static sites

Cons of Rouge

  • Slower performance compared to Highlight.js, especially for client-side highlighting
  • Less extensive theming options and community-contributed styles
  • May require additional setup for non-Ruby environments

Code Comparison

Rouge (Ruby):

require 'rouge'
formatter = Rouge::Formatters::HTML.new
lexer = Rouge::Lexers::Ruby.new
formatter.format(lexer.lex("puts 'Hello, world!'"))

Highlight.js (JavaScript):

const hljs = require('highlight.js');
const code = "console.log('Hello, world!')";
hljs.highlight(code, {language: 'javascript'}).value;

Both Rouge and Highlight.js are popular syntax highlighting libraries, but they cater to different use cases. Rouge is better suited for server-side processing and Ruby-based projects, while Highlight.js excels in client-side highlighting and offers broader language support across various programming environments.

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README

Highlight.js

latest version license install size minified NPM downloads weekly jsDelivr CDN downloads

ci status CodeQL vulnerabilities

discord open issues help welcome issues good first issue

Highlight.js is a syntax highlighter written in JavaScript. It works in the browser as well as on the server. It can work with pretty much any markup, doesn’t depend on any other frameworks, and has automatic language detection.

Contents

Upgrading to Version 11

As always, major releases do contain breaking changes which may require action from users. Please read VERSION_11_UPGRADE.md for a detailed summary of breaking changes and any actions you may need to take.

Support for older versions

Please see SECURITY.md for long-term support information.

Basic Usage

In the Browser

The bare minimum for using highlight.js on a web page is linking to the library along with one of the themes and calling highlightAll:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="/path/to/styles/default.min.css">
<script src="/path/to/highlight.min.js"></script>
<script>hljs.highlightAll();</script>

This will find and highlight code inside of <pre><code> tags; it tries to detect the language automatically. If automatic detection doesn’t work for you, or you simply prefer to be explicit, you can specify the language manually by using the class attribute:

<pre><code class="language-html">...</code></pre>

Plaintext Code Blocks

To apply the Highlight.js styling to plaintext without actually highlighting it, use the plaintext language:

<pre><code class="language-plaintext">...</code></pre>

Ignoring a Code Block

To skip highlighting of a code block completely, use the nohighlight class:

<pre><code class="nohighlight">...</code></pre>

Node.js on the Server

The bare minimum to auto-detect the language and highlight some code.

// load the library and ALL languages
hljs = require('highlight.js');
html = hljs.highlightAuto('<h1>Hello World!</h1>').value

To load only a "common" subset of popular languages:

hljs = require('highlight.js/lib/common');

To highlight code with a specific language, use highlight:

html = hljs.highlight('<h1>Hello World!</h1>', {language: 'xml'}).value

See Importing the Library for more examples of require vs import usage, etc. For more information about the result object returned by highlight or highlightAuto refer to the api docs.

Supported Languages

Highlight.js supports over 180 languages in the core library. There are also 3rd party language definitions available to support even more languages. You can find the full list of supported languages in SUPPORTED_LANGUAGES.md.

Custom Usage

If you need a bit more control over the initialization of Highlight.js, you can use the highlightElement and configure functions. This allows you to better control what to highlight and when.

For example, here’s the rough equivalent of calling highlightAll but doing the work manually instead:

document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', (event) => {
  document.querySelectorAll('pre code').forEach((el) => {
    hljs.highlightElement(el);
  });
});

Please refer to the documentation for configure options.

Using custom HTML

We strongly recommend <pre><code> wrapping for code blocks. It's quite semantic and "just works" out of the box with zero fiddling. It is possible to use other HTML elements (or combos), but you may need to pay special attention to preserving linebreaks.

Let's say your markup for code blocks uses divs:

<div class='code'>...</div>

To highlight such blocks manually:

// first, find all the div.code blocks
document.querySelectorAll('div.code').forEach(el => {
  // then highlight each
  hljs.highlightElement(el);
});

Without using a tag that preserves linebreaks (like pre) you'll need some additional CSS to help preserve them. You could also pre and post-process line breaks with a plug-in, but we recommend using CSS.

To preserve linebreaks inside a div using CSS:

div.code {
  white-space: pre;
}

Using with Vue.js

See highlightjs/vue-plugin for a simple Vue plugin that works great with Highlight.js.

An example of vue-plugin in action:

  <div id="app">
    <!-- bind to a data property named `code` -->
    <highlightjs autodetect :code="code" />
    <!-- or literal code works as well -->
    <highlightjs language='javascript' code="var x = 5;" />
  </div>

Using Web Workers

You can run highlighting inside a web worker to avoid freezing the browser window while dealing with very big chunks of code.

In your main script:

addEventListener('load', () => {
  const code = document.querySelector('#code');
  const worker = new Worker('worker.js');
  worker.onmessage = (event) => { code.innerHTML = event.data; }
  worker.postMessage(code.textContent);
});

In worker.js:

onmessage = (event) => {
  importScripts('<path>/highlight.min.js');
  const result = self.hljs.highlightAuto(event.data);
  postMessage(result.value);
};

Importing the Library

First, you'll likely be installing the library via npm or yarn -- see Getting the Library.

Node.js / require

Requiring the top-level library will load all languages:

// require the highlight.js library, including all languages
const hljs = require('./highlight.js');
const highlightedCode = hljs.highlightAuto('<span>Hello World!</span>').value

For a smaller footprint, load our common subset of languages (the same set used for our default web build).

const hljs = require('highlight.js/lib/common');

For the smallest footprint, load only the languages you need:

const hljs = require('highlight.js/lib/core');
hljs.registerLanguage('xml', require('highlight.js/lib/languages/xml'));

const highlightedCode = hljs.highlight('<span>Hello World!</span>', {language: 'xml'}).value

ES6 Modules / import

Note: You can also import directly from fully static URLs, such as our very own pre-built ES6 Module CDN resources. See Fetch via CDN for specific examples.

The default import will register all languages:

import hljs from 'highlight.js';

It is more efficient to import only the library and register the languages you need:

import hljs from 'highlight.js/lib/core';
import javascript from 'highlight.js/lib/languages/javascript';
hljs.registerLanguage('javascript', javascript);

If your build tool processes CSS imports, you can also import the theme directly as a module:

import hljs from 'highlight.js';
import 'highlight.js/styles/github.css';

Getting the Library

You can get highlight.js as a hosted, or custom-build, browser script or as a server module. Right out of the box the browser script supports both AMD and CommonJS, so if you wish you can use RequireJS or Browserify without having to build from source. The server module also works perfectly fine with Browserify, but there is the option to use a build specific to browsers rather than something meant for a server.

Do not link to GitHub directly. The library is not supposed to work straight from the source, it requires building. If none of the pre-packaged options work for you refer to the building documentation.

On Almond. You need to use the optimizer to give the module a name. For example:

r.js -o name=hljs paths.hljs=/path/to/highlight out=highlight.js

Fetch via CDN

A prebuilt version of Highlight.js bundled with many common languages is hosted by several popular CDNs. When using Highlight.js via CDN you can use Subresource Integrity for additional security. For details see DIGESTS.md.

cdnjs (link)

Common JS 
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/highlight.js/11.10.0/styles/default.min.css">
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/highlight.js/11.10.0/highlight.min.js"></script>
<!-- and it's easy to individually load additional languages -->
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/highlight.js/11.10.0/languages/go.min.js"></script>
ES6 Modules 
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/highlight.js/11.10.0/styles/dark.min.css">
<script type="module">
import hljs from 'https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/highlight.js/11.10.0/es/highlight.min.js';
//  and it's easy to individually load additional languages
import go from 'https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/highlight.js/11.10.0/es/languages/go.min.js';
hljs.registerLanguage('go', go);
</script>

jsdelivr (link)

Common JS 
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/highlightjs/cdn-release@11.10.0/build/styles/default.min.css">
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/highlightjs/cdn-release@11.10.0/build/highlight.min.js"></script>
<!-- and it's easy to individually load additional languages -->
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/highlightjs/cdn-release@11.10.0/build/languages/go.min.js"></script>
ES6 Modules 
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/highlightjs/cdn-release@11.10.0/build/styles/default.min.css">
<script type="module">
import hljs from 'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/highlightjs/cdn-release@11.10.0/build/es/highlight.min.js';
//  and it's easy to individually load additional languages
import go from 'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/highlightjs/cdn-release@11.10.0/build/es/languages/go.min.js';
hljs.registerLanguage('go', go);
</script>

unpkg (link)

Common JS 
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://unpkg.com/@highlightjs/cdn-assets@11.10.0/styles/default.min.css">
<script src="https://unpkg.com/@highlightjs/cdn-assets@11.10.0/highlight.min.js"></script>
<!-- and it's easy to individually load additional languages -->
<script src="https://unpkg.com/@highlightjs/cdn-assets@11.10.0/languages/go.min.js"></script>
ES6 Modules 
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://unpkg.com/@highlightjs/cdn-assets@11.10.0/styles/default.min.css">
<script type="module">
import hljs from 'https://unpkg.com/@highlightjs/cdn-assets@11.10.0/es/highlight.min.js';
//  and it's easy to individually load & register additional languages
import go from 'https://unpkg.com/@highlightjs/cdn-assets@11.10.0/es/languages/go.min.js';
hljs.registerLanguage('go', go);
</script>

Note: The CDN-hosted highlight.min.js package doesn't bundle every language. It would be very large. You can find our list of "common" languages that we bundle by default on our download page.

Download prebuilt CDN assets

You can also download and self-host the same assets we serve up via our own CDNs. We publish those builds to the cdn-release GitHub repository. You can easily pull individual files off the CDN endpoints with curl, etc; if say you only needed highlight.min.js and a single CSS file.

There is also an npm package @highlightjs/cdn-assets if pulling the assets in via npm or yarn would be easier for your build process.

Download from our website

The download page can quickly generate a custom single-file minified bundle including only the languages you desire.

Note: Building from source can produce slightly smaller builds than the website download.

Install via NPM package

Our NPM package including all supported languages can be installed with NPM or Yarn:

npm install highlight.js
# or
yarn add highlight.js

Alternatively, you can build the NPM package from source.

Build from Source

The current source code is always available on GitHub.

node tools/build.js -t node
node tools/build.js -t browser :common
node tools/build.js -t cdn :common

See our building documentation for more information.

Requirements

Highlight.js works on all modern browsers and currently supported Node.js versions. You'll need the following software to contribute to the core library:

  • Node.js >= 12.x
  • npm >= 6.x

License

Highlight.js is released under the BSD License. See our LICENSE file for details.

Links

The official website for the library is https://highlightjs.org/.

Further in-depth documentation for the API and other topics is at http://highlightjs.readthedocs.io/.

A list of the Core Team and contributors can be found in the CONTRIBUTORS.md file.

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