HTML5 vs flash

If you had to build an application/ site and could choose between HTML5 and Flash, which would you choose?
It seems like HTML5 has already been adopted to some extent in the major browsers new releases: explorer 8, firefox 3.6, chrome 5, safari 4+ and opera. What percentage of your visitors do these new browser versions account for?

 

HTML 5 would be the way to go. Its nice and quick (like the Pacman game Google had couple weeks ago on the search page).
Unfortunately I have same percentage of visitors using IE 6, IE 7 and IE 8, while only 20% of users using firefox. It will be a while until most of the sites can take the full advantage of HTML 5...

 

i,agree with @imperialDirectory

 

Both have their merits, really depends on what you are looking to build and whether you are targeting mobile devices.

 

IE8 has NO support for HTML5 while the modern browsers have about 90% coverage.

 

The only part of HTML5 remotely related to Flash would be the canvas, video and audio elements. Flash is pretty stable but, if you can support H.264 and WebM or Ogg, you don't need Flash and you'd be better off.

 

I would suggest you avoid Flash unless you're certain of your market (no mobile devices, and don't care about older computers). Flash is getting a little heavy these days (though that's also related to increasingly voluminous / heavy content). Not sure HTML 5 would be what you'd want though in its place - as drhowarddrfine pointed out, you can really duplicate most Flash functionality with alternative technologies, and thereby avoid commpatibility/speed issues.

 

Both have futures except flash might die a bit in the future. Flash has a whole culture around it and how some companies hate it while others love it.

Huge war currently is mac vs. adobe + google

 

I'm not sure they do to be honest. I worked with flash for a good 5-6 years before dropping it entirely 4 years ago. It's days have been numbered for a very long time and the only reason it is still around is because of the surge of streaming flash video. If it wasn't for that I honestly feel it would have been dead and buried a long time ago.

Besides that, flash requires a plugin, and not everyone can or wants to download a plugin to watch a video...

The only positive thing going for flash now is the eye candy aspect, which is heavily hindered by the fact that it relies on your hardware and has little to zero SEO potential.

 

Done correctly, HTML5 video gives you the opportunity to reach the millions of ipad and iphone users who can't see Flash video.

 

HTML5, it'll be supported on mobile devices very soon. IE6 and other old browser users should upgrade their software to be able to keep up with newest technologies.

 

As someone who has done a little flash - stay away from it!

Its slow and buggy.

 

Slow and buggy? I have never found that, perhaps you were not using it right?

Flash has a lot more going for it than video streaming. It can produce animation, interactive media, games, flex apps to name a few, seeing as AS3 is a fully featured and robust OOP language you can pretty much create anything you want and have that integrate and communicate with XML/PHP and MySQL.

At 99% desktop penetration I'd say the opposite is true.

Actually Google has been able to crawl and index SWF's perfectly well since 2008. If you build your SWF with SEO in mind then this is not an issue. Flash does not rely on hardware other than CPU cycles though the new player does support extra hardware acceleration for better performance. Benchmark tests using particle simulation animation show Flash to be far more efficient than Canvas, HTML5 and SVG.

 

I no longer use Flash video due to the iPod/iPhone/iPad issue. I was never overly impressed with flash video anyway.

 

He might mean the initial startup/download to get a flash page to begin showing something.

Using HTML5 video/audio along with canvas, SVG and javascript you can do the same thing.

Once IE9 comes out in a year or two, HTML5 stuff will have virtually 100% installation and nothing to ever download or install.

Hmm. I'd argue with you about that but I don't recall what I had read.

 

Ive yet to see any HTML5 game that doesn't look like it was made in the early 90's!

And they eat up major CPU cycles just by doing the simplest of things.

Try it for yourself or see the video here

People are slow to upgrade browsers, according to W3schools about 7% of the web is still being viewed in IE6 and another 9% using IE7. Plus currently about 5% of users browsers have Javascript disabled which will limit any interactive content.

No need to argue, try it for yourself

On top of this HTML5 never specified a video spec which means some browsers will only provide native support for OGG and others will only support X264, the long and short of this is that anyone wishing to provide HTML5 video will need to have 2 versions of each video to make sure that their video can be viewed across all browsers which means taking up more server space with what are essentially redundant files and also spending time re-encoding videos to the other format. With HTML specs taking so long between major revisions one has to wonder how we are to cope with all the new video codecs that come about in the meantime?

 

Games? Your source of info is games?! Remember, HTML5 stuff has only been in browsers for six months and most of us have better things to do than make online games!

Some guy standing in Best Buy poking on a screen is hardly a test. Where's the data? And are we comparing Flash, which has been out for years, to HTML5 which isn't finalized, no set codec, not optimized yet, etc.?

Good point I forgot about but people should upgrade and we shouldn't dumb down web sites.

The web was always designed to be scriptable. People with js turned off know what they will and won't get. If they know how to turn it off, then know how to turn it on. Just like IE6 users suffer in silence.

Ah! I forgot Cameron had done that. Notice his statement, "Browsers are catching up".

At least we're down to two and, once encoded, you're done. You only have to make one extra version. With ffmpeg, it's easy and quick.

In any case, all this doesn't matter because the HTML5 stuff is in its infancy. It will get better. You don't need to license it. Anyone can use it for free. If it gets nearly as good as Flash, and it will, then Flash is dead, though that may take some years.

 

HTML5 stuff? Very technical jargon you have there... could you dumb it down for me please, I am but a lowly Flash developer who makes a living by wasting time making dumb games.

However pointless they may seem to you they are probably the best example of interactive multimedia you could find. Where else do graphics, animation, sound, interactivity, video, AI and physics all combine in one place? Flash is the perfect IDE for this and so if HTML5 is looking to replace Flash then it has to outperform it on every level. Why else would the developers switch?

Try skipping in about 3 mins for the CPU usage comparisons or better yet try doing some of your own. And yes we are comparing it because despite the fact that it is not even anywhere near ready yet some people are still quick to claim that it is the Flash killer!

But then you risk alienating x% of your potential customers! Any web designer will tell you that they hate the way IE renders CSS and would love everyone to use a high resolution monitor but these constraining factors can't be ignored when designing a web site, you cant just say well I think people should only view this site with Firefox at 2048X1536 res and anyone else will just have to upgrade or put up with it looking odd. Flash player already has 99% penetration of desktops and your statement of 100% HTML5 penetration just doesn't hold up regardless of what you think people should do.

Only if Adobe stand still, currently they release a new version of Flash IDE around every couple of years... HTML5 isn't officially due until 2022! It's likely that browsers will always be the ones playing catch up. In recent releases we've seen major updates to Flash including AS3, bone systems (and inverse kinematics), Photoshop type blend modes & layer styles, built in physics and 3D capabilities. Aside from Adobes in house development Flash also has a huge developer base online who create varied and innovative class libraries to add extra functionality to projects.

Any major revision of HTML has to first get through the W3 draft process and then be interpreted by every major browser manufacturer, the process is slow and the end results are often inconsistent. Somehow this process has to produce something that not only catches up with Flash but also outperforms it so well that it kills it?! I hear a lot of talk but it seems highly doubtful to me!

Still seems pretty redundant to me and who knows what new codecs will be released in the future? Native support for video is a great feature but I return to my previous point that Flash isn't all about video. That said I'd like to know how people propose to make interactive video such as elfYouself, Jibab personalised video cards or portable northpole without using Flash? I'm certain that Flash video will remain a strong player for interactive video.

Every element of Flash can be accessed through Actionscript and anyone can create Flash files for free if you know Actionscript. You can knock up a Flash app from an open source Actionscript editor like FlashDevelop. I prefer the Flash IDE for its GUI and tight integration with the rest of the creative suite but no-one is forced to use it.

I'm sure that Flash will remain well ahead of the game regardless of what Steve Jobs thinks, I mean here's a guy who build a pretty naff phone that can't even handle a simple JQuery (javascript) fade animation very well trying to tell us that he is ditching flash support not because his phones are cheap rubbish but because HTML5 will replace Flash?!

 

I believe flash will still rule web for next 3-4 yrs, after that it may replace flash banners and online video players. but flash will still be used in mini games .

 

It is very hard to get decent performance out of flash when you try to push the envelope. Here is a trivial example:

5/2 is slower than 5*0.5 - yet the compiler is too stupid to do the conversion for you.

The fact that you have to consider this when making a game, tells you what sort of performance limitations game developers face when using Flash - which is appalling for a 2D engine.

Buggy - When I made a very simple game I had the latest (CS4) IDE crash hundreds of times on me - I ended up with in excess of 30 different version files trying to protect myself. For such expensive software it is not stable.