WYSIWYG HTML Editors: Froala Vs. CKEditor

WYSIWYG editors can help you create content and web pages with no knowledge of HTML principles, making it a holy grail tool for developers. These editors offer numerous options for adding images, editing texts, inserting links, etc. So, what makes these tools so popular among developers?

Well, it’s the magic of programming happening behind the scenes. Any step you take in the process of generating a web page is automatically supported by a relevant HTML code. Hence, given the high demand for WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), many organizations are creating smart and efficient WYSIWYG HTML editors. Froala, CKEditor, and TinyMCE are just a few popular choices.

So, if you’ve got some heavy-duty web editing tasks to get through, chances are there’s one of two programs you might be considering: Froala and CKEditor. Now, you might be wondering which one will suit your needs best. For this reason, we’ve put together a comprehensive comparison to make things easier for you — check it out!

Froala - An Overview

Froala is an open-source HTML editor that provides a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface to create and edit HTML documents. It’s a lightweight, open-source tool loaded with a tonne of features and plugins for turning the web page-making process into a seamless experience. It supports all popular third-party tools such as Code Mirror, Embed.ly Integration, TUI Advanced Image Editor, Codox Real-Time Editing, and more.

Froala is created with user experience (UX) in mind, which allows its easy integration into any web application. It’s straightforward to use and extremely high-performant, and has a clean, neat interface. For users who wish to customize their editor, Froala guarantees that everything can be modified or changed. If you do not like the default color scheme, you can choose another one. However, if you’re not interested in making further changes to the program, Froala offers you the flexibility to choose another layout or customize the rich-text editor’s interface using the customizer.

Froala comes with ready-to-use drag-and-drop design blocks, a set of more than 170+ Bootstrap-based responsive components, allowing you to create beautiful modern websites easily.

Also, users can integrate this WYSIWYG HTML editor to websites and content management systems, learning management systems, document management systems, SaaS web applications, or any other scriptable application with a simple line of code.

Features of Froala

With a clean and intuitive design, Froala offers numerous amazing features that help this editor stand out in the market. As the platform is written in JavaScript, it offers rich text-editing for any application. Let’s have a look at some of its amazing features.

Track the Changes

Froala enables users to track changes against deleted and new text within the text editor. Users can also track various formatting and styling changes to the text, images, and tables. It also allows users to accept and reject the changes accordingly through easy access to ‘Reject or Accept’ a ‘Single or All’ changes via accessible toolbar buttons.

Browser Compatibility

Froala is compatible and tested with all popular internet browsers, including Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. However, due to browser-specific behavior, there may be small differences from one browser to the next. For instance, while working locally and testing examples using file:// instead of using a web server to run the files, the icon will not be shown properly in the Firefox browser. It is because firefox has strict “file uri origin” that forbids web fonts from being accessed from directories other than the root.

Customization

With Froala, users have complete freedom of customization. They can use the API to edit the source code or change the default behavior. The customizer tool allows users to change the look and feel of the page the way they want. Also, they have full control over the toolbar functionality on each screen size.

Robust API

Froala boasts a powerful API, allowing users to customize and interact with this editor easily. The API comes with complete documentation to help developers with easy onboarding.

High Performance

Imagine a JavaScript editor that takes no more than 40 seconds to initialize. Froala does just that! The lightweight nature of the editor ensures optimum loading speed coupled with bulletproof security features.

Markdown Support

Markdown support allows Froala’s users to quickly add Markdown syntax to their text to indicate words and phrases that need formatting. The editor provides a simple split-screen interface to observe the changes in real-time.

Excel & Word Paste

Froala allows clean formatting when pasting from Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word to make sure the code looks clean. With this editor, users can easily paste text boxes, tables, and numbered lists along with captioned images.

Autosave

To improve the saving experience, Froala has a save plugin, which has built-in mechanisms for sending HTTP requests from JavaScript to your server. It handles the requests and stores the data. It is up to the users to manage these requests and save the data on the server-side.

Real-Time Collaboration

Froala utilizes the real-time collaboration capabilities of Codox.io, which is a real-time collaboration service that offers a turn-key solution for integrating real-time co-editing into the applications.

With this service, developers will be able to integrate real-time co-editing with Froala using the client-side API with just a few lines of javascript. Teams will be able to edit the same rich text documents in real-time and see each other's edits (character by character) in Froala.

Plug-Ins

Froala offers plugins for multiple development frameworks to ease its integration with any application. As plugins extend the scope of how the editor performs, Froala is more easy-to-understand, efficient, and easy to maintain.

CKEditor - An Overview

CKEditor is another amazing JavaScript WYSIWYG editor for creating rich text content and simplifying web content creation. Like Froala, CKEditor has a neat design and provides a good user experience for creating semantic content.

CKEditor employs ES6 with MVC architecture, a virtual DOM, and a custom data model. As it relies on modern architecture, it is great for creating web pages, blog posts, news articles, and any other content on the web.

Like Froala, with collaborative tools, CKEditor also helps teams become more productive. The editor is designed to be configurable and extendable, making it a solid alternative for adoption.

The HTML editor focuses on providing high-quality code output and cutting-edge functionality while staying lightweight and allowing easy integration with any application. It imparts common word processor features directly to the web pages. Also, developers can use this editor in their projects. For instance, they can install this editor into their organization’s CMS so that content providers can update the website.

Features of CKEditor

Developed on the top of HTML5 and JavaScript, CKEditor is not only lightweight but can also function properly without the use of additional plugins. It works well on all popular browsers and supports all major input methods. It also enhances the user experience by offering properties for each field, allowing users to view each button's output in real-time.

Let's take a look at some more features of CKEditor that make it popular.

Rich Text Editing

CKEditor allows users to create any content they wish with rich text editing tools. With support for HTML5, users can add multimedia elements to documents. This editor also allows for quick editing of copied text from other applications without losing formatting.

Programming Language Support

CKEditor supports HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and includes a complete set of tools for creating effective websites. Also, users can extend the editor to create their functions.

Autoformatting

With CKEditor, users can easily format and customize the content in a go. For instance, you can add headings with ‘#,’ bold with ‘text,’ inline code with ‘text,’ bulleted list with ‘*’ and code block with three black ticks.

Autosave

CKEditor allows users to automatically save the data when needed by sending it to the server. So, whenever a user makes modifications to the content, new changes will be saved automatically. It even prevents users from leaving before the changes are saved, or any pending action is done.

Restricted editing

CKEditor has an option of restricted editing, which provides users with limited access while editing the documents. It is ideal for templates where only certain parts need to be altered or filled. As a result, an additional security layer is created that restricts the editing rights for a document.

Automatic text transformation

Autocorrect or automatic text transformation turns predefined snippets into special symbols and characters. Defining difficult characters such as ½ or ™ become as easy as writing (TM) and 1/2. With this feature, you can define your own rules.

Track Changes

Allow users to edit your material in suggestion mode to add an extra layer of control. Changes will be labeled as suggestions, with users having the choice of accepting, rejecting, or editing them.

Display Mode

You may configure Comments and Track Changes annotations, allowing users to view them in a wide or narrow sidebar, with or without inline balloons, and cycle between various display styles.

Real-Time Collaboration

Users may see updates, ideas, and comments in real-time, and there is no limit to the number of collaborators. This real-time feature includes a presence list UI that allows you to see active users with whom you’re collaborating.

Froala & CKEditor: Comparison

CKEditor is an open-source editor, and it is free to use. However, for support and upgrades, a user must rely on the open-source community. On the other hand, users of Froala have year-round access to the most recent upgrades and technical assistance.

Both of them come with a rich set of features for HTML content creation and editing. If you are in a dilemma, here is a detailed comparison between the two editors to help you make a more informed decision.

Integration

Froala facilitates integration with multiple development frameworks like Angular, Vue, React and eases the editor’s integration with the help of numerous plugins into applications (Angular, Vue, React) through its API.

On the contrary, CKEditor has over 100 extensions, which results in a much heavier dependency on plugins and a DLL (Dynamic Link Libraries) build to operate.

Customization

Users can easily customize the editor using the API to make changes. With Froala, users can edit source code directly to make changes in the content. Both editors have multiple customization options for the dialogs, styles, and themes. For example, CKEditor offers a wide range of themes and styles.

Pricing

Froala Editor is one of the most affordable WYSIWYG editors with free access to convert text to HTML. However, to avail of an editor license for enterprise or personal app, users will need to upgrade to another plan. CKEditor has a free Edition, but it comes with limited features and functionalities. For more features, users need to subscribe to a ‘Standard’ plan.

The yearly fees for a number of services offered by Froala are extremely reasonable, and on top of that, every plan also has a perpetual license option, making it particularly appealing to long-term users.

API

Froala Editors offer an API that developers can use to extend functionalities in their applications, which include the ability to add custom functions through which users can easily customize the editor. CKEditor also provides cloud-based REST APIs for integration.

Ease of Use

In terms of editor capabilities, advanced functionalities, development, and design features, Froala is the preferable choice. Froala comes with documentation support, as well as comprehensive text editing capabilities, well-structured developer-friendly APIs, blazing fast speed, and a customizable editor that makes Froala easy to use for both developers and users.

Documentation

Froala Editors provides detailed and easy-to-navigate documentation to help users get started easily without any hassle. In contrast, CKEditor’s documentation is complex to understand and more of a reference guide.

Security

CKEditor uses JSON-based data structures for all internal communication, making it less vulnerable to cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks. Froala Editor is also impervious to CSRF attacks due to the use of JWT tokens for server communication and even consists of a robust defense mechanism against XSS attacks.

When Should You Choose Froala?

If you are looking for a budget-friendly option for a WYSIWYG HTML editor, Froala is a go-to option. One core feature that makes Froala a better option than CKEditor is Auto-direction. With this feature, the editor automatically detects if the keyboard input is LTR or RTL and adjusts the text direction.

When Should You Choose CKEditor?

If you are looking for an easy-to-manage WYSIWYG editor with versatile functionalities such as real-time collaborative editing and tracking changes, CKEditor is the right choice. However, the CKEditor is a little difficult to understand at first, so users need to refer to support documents to understand how the platform works.

Wrap Up

After reviewing these two exceptional WYSIWYG HTML editors, it is fair to say that Froala outshines CKEditor with many features to help developers create high-quality content.

What’s more interesting? According to G2 Froala is a leading WYSIWYG editor!

However, Froala editor stands out when it comes to user experience. This HTML editor makes content creation convenient and easy to use. Also, you can easily customize colors, fonts, icons, and more without knowing code or writing separate CSS files. Froala's editor makes it simple to incorporate third-party plugins, which is also an edge.

On the other hand, CKEditor is an HTML editor with great functionality for creating websites but with more complex configurations. So, if your company requires an editor that provides outstanding features with fewer code modifications or integrations into existing systems, then Froala editor is the right choice.

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