Highlight.js

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

25004 stars · 3757 forks observed · 2026-10-16

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-10-12, confidence 0.99

Highlight.js is a JavaScript library that adds syntax highlighting to code blocks in web pages and server‑side environments. It supports automatic language detection, hundreds of language grammars, and works with any HTML markup.

Use cases

• Add syntax highlighting to code snippets in a blog or documentation site
• Display highlighted source code in a web‑based IDE or code viewer
• Render highlighted code on the server for static site generation
• Integrate code highlighting into a Vue.js application via the official plugin
• Use Highlight.js in Node.js or Deno scripts to generate highlighted HTML
• Load only specific languages to reduce bundle size in a frontend project

When to choose

• You need a lightweight, zero‑dependency highlighter that works in both browser and Node environments
• You want automatic language detection with a large set of supported languages
• You prefer a library that can be loaded via CDN, npm, or as a framework‑specific plugin

When to avoid

• You require advanced theming or editor‑style interactions beyond static HTML highlighting
• You need a high‑performance, streaming highlighter for massive codebases
• You are looking for a tightly integrated solution for a specific framework that provides deeper API hooks

Facets

library · maturity active

parser ui-components web-development developer-tools browser zero-dependencies language-auto-detection 193-languages cdn vue-plugin nodejs deno

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="highlightjs/highlight.js")