#537: Datastar: Modern web dev, simplified

About this episode

The episode discusses Datastar, a framework that simplifies web development by integrating features of HTMX and Alpine.js.

You love building web apps with Python, and HTMX got you excited about the hypermedia approach -- let the server drive the HTML, skip the JavaScript build step, keep things simple. But then you hit that last 10%: You need Alpine.js for interactivity, your state gets out of sync, and suddenly you're juggling two unrelated libraries that weren't designed to work together. What if there was a single 11-kilobyte framework that gave you everything HTMX and Alpine do, and more, with real-time updates, multiplayer collaboration out of the box, and performance so fast you're actually bottlenecked by the monitor's refresh rate? That's Datastar. On this episode, I sit down with its creator Delaney Gillilan, core maintainer Ben Croker, and Datastar convert Chris May to explore how this backend-driven, server-sent-events-first framework is changing the way full-stack developers think about the modern web.

People in this episode

Host: Michael Kennedy

Guests: Delaney Gillilan, Ben Croker, Chris May

Topics covered

• web development
• Python
• HTMX
• Alpine.js
• Datastar
• full-stack development
• real-time updates

Keywords

• web apps
• hypermedia
• JavaScript
• server-driven
• multiplayer collaboration
• performance
• framework

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Datastar, HTMX, Alpine.js

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