WIYSIWYG Editor Feature Comparison
| TinyMCE | FckEditor | |
|---|---|---|
| Browser Support | Supports IE 5.5+, Firefox 1.5+, Safari 3.0+, Opera 9.5+, Chrome, Camio 1.0+ | Supports IE 5.5+, Firefox 1.5+, Safari 3.0+, Opera 9+, Chrome, SeaMonkey 1.0.5, Maxthon2 |
| Source Code | Clean source code | Messy source code |
| Code Output | Creates clean HTML markup | Latest versions create clean HTML markup. |
| Performance | Faster than FckEditor. | Slower than TinyMCE. |
| Company Website | Is supported by an easy to use website. | Website is not as easy as TinyMCE. |
| Community Support | Has a great community around it. | Has a great community around it. |
| Documentation | Has great documentation. | Has decent documentation. |
| Installation | Is very streamlined and easy to install. | Is easy to install but not quite as streamlined. |
| Installation Connectors | Does not have Installation Connectors. | Supports Active-FoxPro, ASP.Net, ASP, ColdFusion, Java, Lasso, Perl, PHP and Python |
| Plugin Archive | Has a great archive of plugins | Has good archive of plugins but are hard to find. |
| Plugin Installation | Plugins are easy to install | Plug ins are harder to install |
| Themes | Themes are easily customizable. | Themes are easily customizable. |
| Image/File upload | Doesn’t come with image/file uploader (though you can download plugins). | Comes with a limited image/file uploader. |
Which one should I use?
Use FckEditor when. . .
You’re looking for something that works and you’re not interested in clean source code or using some of the advanced features.
Use TinyMCE when. . .
You’re interested in clean source code, plugin and theme development and you want a more streamlined experience.
I prefer TinyMCE
As a developer I use TinyMCE because it has great documentation and the learning curve isn’t as steep as FckEditor.
The only advantage that FckEditor has over TinyMCE is the Image/File uploader and the Installation Connectors. However, I was able to solve these problems by finding a great Image uploader plugin and creating my own installation connector.
Image uploader for TinyMCE
Image Manager – After testing nearly a dozen different plugins this is easily the best image upload plugin that I’ve found. (Though the original is in Russian they have an English version.)
My PHP Installation Connector
TinyMCE PHP Installation Connector – This makes it easy to setup TinyMCE using PHP. (There are setup instructions in the source code).
CKEditor is looking very promising
The latest version of FckEditor, now called CKEditor, is looking very promising. It’s already faster than FckEditor and seems more stable.
However, I took a peak at the source code and it was a bit more complex than I would have liked.
It’s still early though so we’ll see what develops.
What are you thoughts?
Do you have any plugins that you recommend? Do you prefer TinyMCE or FckEditor? Please share any thoughts in my comments!
Comments
Post by Joshua Gay on July 13, 2009
The image handling are good in both, although you need to get 3rd-party extensions for tinymce. FCKEditor is actually faster than TinyMCE when you take into account rendering. Also, you should read this, http://ceardach.com/blog/2009/01/review-current-state-tinymce-fckeditor-and-wysiwyg-api