Alternatives to jQuery Mobile for mobile web apps? Zepto, XUI, what else? [closed]

Question

We use jQuery Mobile inside a PhoneGap app designed for iOS devices.

But it requires jQuery, which is very large.

The primary reason for using JQM is to help with page transitions, event management (e.g., bind, live, on), and touch events.

Are there lightweight alternatives to JQM that provide similar functionality? We know about Zepto and XUI.

We don't need the interface layer since we handle that on our own.

What are your experiences with these alternatives?

Answer 1

I'd recommend Backbone and Zepto for an HTML-based app. Both are very lightweight, powerful, and easy to learn. You can use Zepto for CSS3-based animation/transitions and events, while Backbone helps you organize your code in a sane way. My experience with these tools has been primarily on a game targeting mobile devices written in Javascript. While the performance wasn't as good as native (as expected), it really wasn't too bad... for a more traditional, "business-y" app, I think Zepto/Backbone is perfectly viable.

Answer 2

Ultimately, we built our page transitions and tap event handling. Super simple, maybe two hours of work at most. This was the best alternative for us since all the other libraries offered a lot more than we needed. If all you need is basic page transitions and tap events, we recommend going this route as well. Otherwise, take a look at the options mentioned previously.