# Datastar 45 Hacker News commenters recommended Datastar and 10 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Recommended as a small, fast alternative to htmx and React for server-driven reactivity with little JavaScript. Critics mainly object to its ID-heavy style and the paid Pro edition. ## Why people recommend it - Smaller and faster than htmx and Alpine (4 comments): "It is more powerful, faster and smaller than htmx and alpine combined, and has all sorts of capabilities specifically for multi-player live reactivity." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48914857)) "it subsumes the functionality of htmx, is faster, more efficient and fits inside 11 KiB" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46953628)) "subsumes both, and then does even more. While being smaller, faster and simpler." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46665163)) - Simpler than React or SPA architectures (5 comments): "Having used both in anger, I find d* has a lot of very real advantages over react if you care about performance and application stability." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49135318)) "with Datastar's SSE approach you can get better than SPA experience with a simpler mental model" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49154450)) "This is SO much more efficient than our previous reactjs & graphql render waterfalls" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49285810)) - Client-side signals built in (3 comments): "The part that really sets Datastar apart for me is it holds client-side variables which are included in all requests." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46840449)) "I've come to prefer it. Partially because I don't need something like alpine.js to get some frontend goodies" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45804513)) "Datastar has a lean and mean signals implementation that handles all the front-end reactive stuff" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49134352)) - Modular and extensible design (3 comments): "having a full framework while still allowing super easy way to make whatever API as you see fit" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45818077)) "Everything is a plugin, and you are free to extend it to suite your needs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49135277)) "Datastar is also very explicitly designed to be modular and extensible" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46321689)) ## What people warn about - Paid Pro edition and licensing worries (3 comments): "Datastar Pro isn't FOSS, and speaking from a purely probabilistic and historical standpoint, your odds of getting rugpulled" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45804504)) "Datastar have locked this feature behind the" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45804541)) "Pay for the antipatterns?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45804731)) - No history or progressive enhancement (3 comments): "Last I checked Datastar doesn't support progressive enhancement." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48929027)) "But I don't see how D* prevents correct urls/history at all" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45806315)) "It doesn't have history support out of the box." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46347363)) - Hostile or odd maintainer behavior (2 comments): "The main guy gets incredibly agitated and starts calling you names if you don't agree with him" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45806229)) "My current plan is to switch to Datastar too, although the devs seem a little odd." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46315912)) - Weak docs and LLM support (2 comments): "Datastar looks interesting, but their guide on how to redirect a user is a joke." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45808906)) "I want to like it but I find the LLM doesn't program in it well" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49280735)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [React](https://hackerapproved.com/p/react.md): 482 recommend - [htmx](https://hackerapproved.com/p/htmx.md): 320 recommend - [Svelte](https://hackerapproved.com/p/svelte.md): 151 recommend - [Vue](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vue.md): 121 recommend - [Angular](https://hackerapproved.com/p/angular.md): 82 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Datastar", https://hackerapproved.com/p/datastar/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).