Compared with other languages · Guides

Kiln has every feature most sites use from Twig, plus async data, server islands, typed props, render limits and tooling. This page compares it with Twig and the most popular JavaScript template languages.

Has it
Partly. Hover for details
Doesn't have it

Layouts and reuse

Feature	Kiln	Twig	Nunjucks	LiquidJS	Handlebars
Layouts with blocks	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partly: Partial blocks
Includes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Macros	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Components with named slots	Yes	Yes	Partly: One slot	No	Partly: One slot
Props with types and defaults	Yes	Partly: Types aren't checked	No	No	No
Includes isolated by default	Yes	Partly: With only	No	Partly: With render	No
Render a single block	Yes	Yes	No	No	No

Expressions

Feature	Kiln	Twig	Nunjucks	LiquidJS	Handlebars
Your own filters and functions	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partly: Filters only	Partly: Helpers
Arrow functions	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Null coalescing with ??	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Missing variables are errors by default	Yes	Partly: Option	Partly: Option	Partly: Option	Partly: Option

Escaping and safety

Feature	Kiln	Twig	Nunjucks	LiquidJS	Handlebars
Output escaped by default	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partly: Option	Yes
Escaping for attributes, JavaScript, CSS and URLs	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Safe for templates you didn't write	Yes	Partly: Opt-in sandbox	No	Yes	Partly: Blocks prototypes
Limits on steps, output and depth	Yes	No	No	Yes	No

Data and output

Feature	Kiln	Twig	Nunjucks	LiquidJS	Handlebars
Async data	Yes	No	Partly: Callback API	Yes	No
Streaming	Yes	Yes	No	Partly: Node streams only	No
Server islands	Yes	No	No	No	No
Fragment caching	Yes	Partly: Extension	No	No	No
Number and date formatting with Intl	Yes	Partly: Extension	No	Partly: Dates only	No
Plurals for any locale	Yes	No	No	No	No
Lines up indentation	Yes	No	No	No	No

Running and tooling

Feature	Kiln	Twig	Nunjucks	LiquidJS	Handlebars
Runs on Cloudflare Workers	Yes	No	Partly: Precompiled only	Yes	Partly: Precompiled only
Precompile at build time	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Types generated from templates	Yes	No	No	No	No
Formatter and language server	Yes	Partly: Third party	Partly: Third party	Partly: Third party	Partly: Third party

About this comparison

Versions. Checked in October 2026 against Twig 3, Nunjucks 3.2, LiquidJS 10.29 and Handlebars 4.7.
Built in only. A tick means the feature ships with the language. "Extension" means an official package you install as well. "Third party" means someone outside the project maintains it.
Twig runs on PHP. The others run on JavaScript. Twing is a JavaScript port of Twig.
Kiln leaves some of Twig out on purpose. For example use, custom delimiters and bitwise operators. See Coming from Twig for the full list.
Speed. See the benchmarks for how fast each engine renders real pages.

If something here is wrong or out of date, please open an issue.