Ember.js server side or client side or both?

Question

I'm a little confuse with Ember.js, I don't understand some basic concepts related to Ember. I see on the official page that Ember is a client side framework.

The reason for this difference is due to Ruby on Rails being a server-side framework, whereas Ember is a client-side framework.

Ember Doc.

But at the same time, I know that Ember run under Node.js which is a server side framework.

It is also true that with Ember I can build the views and components for the user's interfaces.

So, I'm very confused, is Ember a server side framework, client framework or both?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Server-side rendering is different than server-side framework.

What we have generally in a server-side framework:

• Data source access (database access)
• Transaction management
• Security management
• Scheduled tasks

What we have generally in a client-side framework:

• Displaying data
• Dealing with user input

So as a result, Ember.js is client-side framework.

Of course, you can access data sources (such as pouchdb) from ember.js or you need to implement a security policy in client-side. But those are not the case, core implementation for a security has to be done in server-side.

Ember.js has two options about rendering UI:

• Client-side rendering: rendering are placed in user's browser.
• Server-side rendering: rendering are placed in a server than results are send to the client's browser. (via fastboot)

Answer 2

Ember is a client side framework, primarily used to write Single Page Applications for the Web platform.

Ember uses Node as a tool to improve the development process and developer productivity with NPM and an accompanying CLI tool called Ember-CLI. This tool includes things like building the application scripts, installing dependencies, combining resources, using a live-reloading development server etc. That being said, you could build an Ember application without ever using Node, it's just more work you would need to do on your own.

Ember also supports rendering its views on the server via Fastboot.