highlight.js
Syntax highlighting library with automatic language detection for code blocks.
Markdown, editors and content npm BSD-3-Clause
Used in agent projects
68
0.5% of 12,697 public repos built with AI coding agents
Rank in markdown, editors and content
#12 of 46
by use in those projects
Downloads
38.6M
npm, last 7 days, highlight.js
GitHub stars
25K
last push Sep 6, 2026
How highlight.js is used
highlight.js is a dependency in 68 of the 12,697 public GitHub projects set up for AI coding agents that we scanned (0.5%), #12 of 46 in markdown, editors and content. The most used alternative there is react-markdown. Projects that use it most often also use TypeScript (91.2%), Tailwind CSS (69.1%), ESLint (72.1%).
Often used with highlight.js
| TypeScript | 91.2% of highlight.js projects · 1.6× more than average |
|---|---|
| Tailwind CSS | 69.1% of highlight.js projects · 2.0× more than average |
| ESLint | 72.1% of highlight.js projects · 1.9× more than average |
| react-markdown | 33.8% of highlight.js projects · 11.9× more than average |
| Marked | 33.8% of highlight.js projects · 29.0× more than average |
| React | 70.6% of highlight.js projects · 1.6× more than average |
| rehype-highlight | 27.9% of highlight.js projects · 91.0× more than average |
| remark-gfm | 27.9% of highlight.js projects · 12.3× more than average |
By coding agent
| Claude Code | 1.0% of projects set up for it |
|---|---|
| GitHub Copilot | 0.9% of projects set up for it |
| Cursor | 0.9% of projects set up for it |
| Gemini CLI | 1.4% of projects set up for it |
| OpenCode | 1.6% of projects set up for it |
Share of public repos configured for each agent that list highlight.js as a dependency.
Install
| Package | npm install highlight.js |
|---|---|
| Main stacks | TypeScript / JavaScript (34), Next.js (25), PHP (6), Python (2) |
| Example projects | ChenyCHENYU/Robot_Admin, trypostit/trypost, miantiao-me/bm.md, Hyk260/PureChat, cdavid817/vanehub-ai |
Alternatives to highlight.js
| Tool | Used in agent projects | Downloads / wk | GitHub stars | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| react-markdown npm React component for rendering markdown with customizable component handling. |
360 (2.8%) | 37.2M | 15.9K | MIT |
| remark-gfm npm Remark plugin adding GitHub Flavored Markdown support for tables and strikethrough. |
288 (2.3%) | 44.5M | 1,249 | MIT |
| Jinja2 pypi Fast and expressive template engine for Python with powerful flexibility. |
175 (1.4%) | 145M | 11.8K | — |
| Marked npm Fast, efficient markdown parser for converting markdown to HTML. |
148 (1.2%) | 83.8M | 37.2K | MIT |
| React Syntax Highlighter npm React component for syntax highlighting code with Prism.js or Highlight.js. |
110 (0.9%) | 7.8M | 4,674 | MIT |
| gray-matter npm Parser extracting YAML/JSON front matter from markdown and text files. |
106 (0.8%) | 10.6M | 4,490 | MIT |
| Tiptap npm Headless Vue/React rich text editor framework with customizable extensions. |
105 (0.8%) | 18.7M | 38.7K | MIT |
| Pygments pypi Syntax highlighting library for code in Python supporting hundreds of programming languages. |
97 (0.8%) | 239M | 2,213 | — |