Template engines

Rust template engines split into compile-time and runtime designs. Askama compiles Jinja-like templates into Rust code during the build, so template errors and missing fields are caught by the compiler and rendering is fast. Maud skips template files and writes HTML with a macro inside Rust source. ructe and Yarte also compile templates ahead of time. The trade-off is that changing a template requires a rebuild.

Runtime engines load templates when the program runs, which suits user-editable templates and hot reloading. Tera has Jinja2 and Django-like syntax and is used by the Zola static site generator. MiniJinja, by the author of Jinja2, implements a close match of Jinja2 behaviour with few dependencies, which also makes it a good fit for rendering prompts or config files. handlebars-rust implements Handlebars.

As a rule, choose Askama or Maud for server-rendered pages in a web app where type safety matters, and MiniJinja or Tera when templates come from users, themes or files that change without recompiling. The main engines escape HTML by default in their HTML modes, so check how each one marks trusted content as safe before inserting raw markup. Speed rarely decides the choice, since all of them are fast enough for typical pages.