Here are some benchmarks: http://jsperf.com/dom-vs-innerhtml/18 http://jsperf.com/dom-vs-innerhtml/18 TLDR: It depends, but DOM manipulation tends to be faster

Here are some benchmarks: http://jsperf.com/dom-vs-innerhtml/18 http://jsperf.com/dom-vs-innerhtml/18 TLDR: It depends, but DOM manipulation tends to be faster in newer browsers.