What’s the difference between HTML and HTML5? Is it a battle between old vs new or a blend of innovation and tradition? For this, read on this article to the last and find out the answers on your own as we have mentioned the core difference between HTML vs HTML5 and the advancements it has brought with itself.
What is HTML?
HTML is short for Hypertext Markup Language and refers to the primary language of the World Wide Web (www). It is one of the easiest languages to learn and use to create web pages and static websites. HTML works by using tags to define text structures. Each tag is defined using the <> formula called open and close tags. However, this language cannot make dynamic or interactive webpages; it can only modify the static elements of a web page, such as the content header, footer, and image position. To build an interactive website, you need to combine HTML with two front-end languages Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) and JavaScript.
What is HTML5?
HTML5 is the 5th and current version of HTML that brings many advanced features and improvements. The goal of HTML5 is to improve the language with the latest multimedia and new features. It has introduced applications like programming interfaces (API), Document Object Model (DOM), geo-location services and drag and drop. One of the most exciting features that HTML5 has brought is <canvas> element for drawing different graphic components. Also, it has introduced some brand-new inputs including emails, URLs, dates, times, and searches. Moreover, HTML5 is more complete and easier as it has a lot of new tags like <header>, <footer>, <navy>, <audio>, <video>, <main>, etc while HTML does not support these tags and instead depends upon third party plug-ins.
HTML vs HTML5 (What’s the Difference?)
Both HTML and HTML5 are used to create web pages and applications but the latest HTML5 adds new features to work with multimedia and to make many things easier. Below we have mentioned the key difference between HTML vs HTML5.
| HTML | HTML5 |
| HTML is compatible with all browsers as it has been present for a long and is designed in a way to support all the features. | Only a few browsers are fully compatible with HTML5 because some elements and tags are removed or modified. |
| HTML is lengthy and complex. | HTML5 is simplified. |
| HTML only uses browser cache and cookies to store data temporarily. | HTML5 uses web SQL databases, local storage, and application cache for storing data temporarily. |
| Vector graphics are possible with VML, Silver-light, Flash, etc technologies. | Vector graphics are integrated in HTML5 like SVG and Canvas. |
| It doesn’t allow to draw shapes like circles, triangles, and rectangles. | It allows you to draw shapes like circles, triangles, and rectangles. |
| Does not allow drag and drop. | Allows to drag and drop. |
| The browser cannot run in JavaScript. | JavaScript runs in the background with the help of API. |
| HTML cannot handle inaccurate syntax. | HTML5 is capable of handling inaccurate syntax. |
| Longer document type declaration. | Shorter document-type declaration. |
| Uses the ASCII character set. | Uses the UTF-8 character set |
| No support for <video> and <audio> elements, instead HTML uses third-party plug-ins. | <video> and <audio> elements for native media playback without plugins. |
| It is less efficient and flexible as compared to HTML5. | It is more efficient and flexible. |
| <html>, <body>, and <head> tags are mandatory | These tags can be omitted when writing is not mandatory. |
| No features to determine user geo-location. | HTML5 has a JavaScript geolocation API to determine user location while accessing the website. |
| Lack of attributes like charset, async, and ping. | HTML 5 includes attributes such as charset, async, and ping. |
Advancements in HTML vs HTML5
Here we have mentioned the advancements of HTML5 which is a popular markup language’s biggest update with impressive changes.
- Elements like <applet> changed to <object>, <acronym> changed to <abbr> and <dir> changed to <ul>.
- Different outdated elements like <frameset>, <frame>, <center>, <font>, and <strike> are removed.
- HTML5 offers new elements for media content such as <audio>, <video>, <source>, and <track>.
- It has also introduced form elements such as email, url, date, time, range, and color to improve user experience and reduce reliance on JavaScript.
- HTML5 offers offline and storage capabilities to store data in browsers, apple cache for offline application access, and manage large amounts of structured data with IndexedDB.
- HTML5 has enhanced API support with geo-location, drag-and-drop API, History API, web sockets, and web workers.
- HTML5 provides improved accessibility and flexibility including MathML, that offers support for displaying mathematical notations and supports 3D graphics and animations without the need for third-party plug-ins.
FAQs
Q: Is HTML5 easy to learn?
A: Yes, learning HTML5 is practically the same as HTML because HTML5 is just an upgraded version of HTML and the concepts are mostly the same with some advancement.
Q: Why is HTML5 so popular nowadays?
A: In today’s technology world, HTML5 is so popular because it has brought many new features compared to previous HTML versions which made web development more efficient and simpler.
What’s Better Between HTML vs HTML5
In this article, we have mentioned the difference between HTML and HTML5 which is just an advancement of HTML. But if we talk about what is better between these two markup languages then without any doubt HTML5 is highly developed with a clearer structure that has built-in media support, dynamic graphics, better storage, and improved error handling. Although, with these new advancements certain old browsers are unable to process some of the usabilities of HTML vs HTML5, while HTML works with all kinds of browsers.
Moreover, in today’s time, HTML5 has become the preferred choice for web designers because of its many advantages for both users and developers. It has opened up many possibilities for developers to create engaging and creative websites. Also, contact our Expert website developers to ensure the website is user-friendly, runs smoothly, and meets user expectations.
