Josh Robinson
If you are trying to make a singe page app it doesn't take long to realize your code needs some structure. Even a simple app can turn into a mess quickly. Luckily we are in a javascript framework renaissance and have plenty of good options to choose from. This list is to track the best of those frameworks.
Backbone is a JavaScript library with a RESTful JSON interface, and is loosely based on the model–view–controller (MVC) application design paradigm. Backbone is known for being lightweight, as its only dependency is on one JavaScript library, Underscore.js. It is designed for developing single-page web applications, and for keeping various parts of web applications (e.g. multiple clients and the server) synchronized. Backbone was created by Jeremy Ashkenas, who is also known for CoffeeScript. (via Wikipedia)
A framework for creating ambitious web applications, Ember.js is an extraction of the SproutCore application framework which has been contributed to by Apple Inc.
Knockout.js attempts to simplify dynamic JavaScript UIs by applying the Model-View-View Model (MVVM) pattern. It features include declarative bindings, automatic UI refresh, dependency tracking and templating.
The goal of the Google backed AngularJS is to augment browser-based applications with Model–View–Controller (MVC) capability and reduce the amount of JavaScript needed to make web applications functional.
Batman.js is a framework for building rich web applications with CoffeeScript or JavaScript. App code is concise and declarative, thanks to a powerful system of view bindings and observable properties. The API is designed with developer and designer happiness as its first priority. Batman.js was extracted from Shopify.com and continues to be backed by the company.
Meteor.js pushes the boundary of what a Single-Page App framework can do. It not only provides the standard client side components the others do but also provides clean, powerful data synchronization through a backend server. Meteor is still fairly new but shows a lot of potential.
A MVC framework to making it easy to write realtime, collaborative applications that run in both Node.js and browsers. Derby is similar to the better known Meteor.js in that it provides a server for data synchronization but differs in other ways including its being released under the MIT license.
