Alpine.js VS htmx

Alpinejs is a lightweight JavaScript framework that allows you to add interactivity to your websites. It provides a number of features that make it easy to add things like modals, tooltips, and animations to your site.

Nowadays, I use https://alpinejs.dev/ I want to describe it as a statefull jQuery. You "ask" alpine for things to have a certain behavior when certain conditions are met, and it takes care of the rest.

I quite like https://alpinejs.dev/ for smaller embedded and non-component usage.

I really want to switch over to htmx, as I've moved away from SPAs frameworks, and I've been much happier. SPAs have so much abstraction, and modern JavaScript is pretty decent to work with.

The thing that keeps holding me back from htmx is that it breaks Content Security Policy (CSP), which means you lose an effective protection against XSS.[0] When I last asked the maintainer about this, the response was that this was unlikely to ever change.[1]

Alpine.js, a similar project to htmx, claims to have a CSP-compatible version,[2] but it's not actually available in any official builds.

[0] https://htmx.org/docs/#security

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32158352

[2] https://alpinejs.dev/advanced/csp

[3] https://github.com/alpinejs/alpine/issues/237

You can implement interactivity which doesn't need data from the server entirely client side. Libraries like https://alpinejs.dev help here and pair well with htmx.

You can do vanilla JS, but also take a look at some libraries like https://htmx.org/ or https://alpinejs.dev/ to make it easier and reduce boilerplate.

All of your requirements can be met by React or Vue but I would use https://alpinejs.dev

It depends a lot on what your project actually needs, but something like HTMX, AlpineJS, or even just plain old Typescript/Javascript might well be enough. If the majority of the work will be happening on the back end in Kotlin, and all you need is some UI to occasionally update itself or toggle a menu or something, then you don't really need to touch any of the heavyweight options at all.

HTMX works well with any language, any backend and goes a long way. Unpoly too.

htmx for requests.

Of course it depends on your use case. But consider https://htmx.org/ together with go templates.

Look at htmx, i find the approach refreshing and elegant. May not be a fit for you, and does not address styling but it's an interesting, powerful technology.

https://htmx.org/

Nice essays too:

the dream of the 90's is alive at big sky software:

https://htmx.org