[leg100]

I don't think the article does a good job of summarising the differences, so I'll have a go:

* Datastar sends all responses using SSE (Server Side Events). Usually SSE is employed to allow the server to push events to the client, and Datastar does this, but it also uses SSE encoding of events in response to client initiated actions like clicking a button (clicking the button sends a GET request and the server responds with zero or more SSE events over a time period of the server's choice).

* Whereas HTMX supports SSE as one of several extensions, and only for server-initiated events. It also supports Websockets for two-way interaction.

* Datastar has a concept of signals, which manages front-end state. HTMX doesn't do this and you'll need AlpineJS or something similar as well.

* HTMX supports something called OOB (out-of-band), where you can pick out fragments of the HTML response to be patched into various parts of the DOM, using the ID attribute. In Datastar this is the default behaviour.

* Datastar has a paid-for Pro edition, which is necesssary if you want certain behaviours. HTMX is completely free.

I think the other differences are pretty minor:

* Datastar has smaller library footprint but both are tiny to begin with (11kb vs 14kb), which is splitting hairs.

* Datastar needs fewer attributes to achieve the same behaviours. I'm not sure about this, you might need to customise the behaviour which requires more and more attributes, but again, it's not a big deal.

[lioeters]

As someone on the sideline who's been considering HTMX, its alternatives and complements, this was a helpful comment! Even without having used any of it, I get the feeling they're going in the right direction, including HTMX author's humorous evangelism. If I remember correctly he also wrote Grug, which was satire and social criticism of high caliber.

[nchmy]

some quibbles

D* doesnt only use SSE. It can do normal http request-response as well. Though, SSE can also do 0, 1 or infinite responses too.

Calling datastar's pro features "necessary" is a bit disingenuous - they literally tell people not to buy it because those features, themselves, are not actually necessary. Theyre just bells and whistles, and some are actually a bad idea (in their own words).

Datastar is 11kb and that includes all of the htmx plugins you mentioned (sse, idiomorph) and much more (all of alpine js, essentially).

[leg100]

> Calling datastar's pro features "necessary" is a bit disingenuous

I didn't. I said:

> * Datastar has a paid-for Pro edition, which is necesssary if you want certain behaviours. HTMX is completely free.

I don't need to spell out why this means something very different to what you think it means.

I'll happily concede on the other two quibbles.

[nchmy]

Sorry, i can see how i misinterpreted the "necessary" part.