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.
| Creator | Cost (USD) | Open Source | Software license | Leading application | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gecko | Mozilla Corporation | Free | Yes | MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license | Mozilla Firefox |
| iCab | Alexander Clauss | Free / $29 (Pro) | No | Proprietary | iCab |
| KHTML | KDE | Free | Yes | LGPL | Konqueror |
| Presto | Opera Software | Free | No | Proprietary | Opera |
| Robin | Ritlabs | $25 | No | Proprietary | The Bat! |
| Tasman | Microsoft | $399.99 † | No | Proprietary | Microsoft Entourage |
| Trident | Microsoft | Free† | No | Proprietary | Internet Explorer |
| WebCore | Apple Computer | Free | Yes | LGPL | Safari |
- ^ Only officially available as part of Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac (price shown is for Standard edition)
- ^ While the source code is not free, the Trident engine is available as a DLL module for free, excluding the cost of Microsoft Windows.
[edit] Release history
A brief overview of the release history.
| First public release | First stable release | Latest stable release | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Version | Date | Version | Date | Version | |
| Gecko | December 7, 1998 | "Preview" | March 19, 1999 | M3 | February 23, 2007 | 1.8.1.2 |
| iCab | 1998 | ? | 1998 | ? | August 18, 2006 | 3.0.3 |
| KHTML | October 2000 | ? | October 2000 | ? | January 25, 2007 | 3.5.6 |
| Presto | November 13, 2002 | 7.0 beta 1 | January 28, 2003 | 7.0 | December 15, 2006 | 9.10 |
| Robin | April 27, 2000 | 1.32 | April 27, 2000 | 1.32 | December 27, 2006 | 3.95 |
| Tasman | March 27, 2000 | 0 | March 27, 2000 | 0 | May 11, 2004 | 1.0 |
| Trident | April 1997 | I | October 1997 | I | October 18, 2006 | 7 |
| WebCore | January 7, 2003 | 48 | June 23, 2003 | 85 | November 28, 2006 | 418.9.1 |
[edit] Operating system support
The operating systems the engines can run on without emulation.
| Browser | Windows | Mac OS X | Mac OS 9 | Linux | BSD | Unix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gecko | Yes | Yes | Dropped | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| iCab | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| KHTML | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Presto | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Robin | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Tasman | No | Yes | Dropped | No | No | No |
| Trident | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| WebCore | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
- Although dropped in current version, older versions of the Gecko layout engine for Mac OS 9 are still available for download from Netscape's Archived Products site.
- Most of WebCore runs natively on Windows, minus non-ported features such as SVG, Canvas, and plugins.
[edit] WebCore notes
Linux, BSD and Unix support are through GTK-WebCore which is alpha software. The WebKit-project also has a GDK-port (WebKit 420+) in the repository. It uses drawing primitives from GTK+ rather than GTK+-widgets.
[edit] Standard support
- Comparison of layout engines (HTML)
- Comparison of layout engines (XML)
- Comparison of layout engines (XHTML)
- Comparison of layout engines (graphics)
- Comparison of layout engines (CSS)
- Comparison of layout engines (DOM)
- Comparison of layout engines (WHATWG)
- Comparison of layout engines (ECMAScript)
