hotwire-rails VS inertia-laravel

Applications generated with Rails 7 will get Turbo and Stimulus (from Hotwire) by default, instead of Turbolinks and UJS. Hotwire is a new approach that delivers fast updates to the DOM by sending HTML over the wire.

For Ajax-y stuff, I am really excited by the new crop of "HTML-as-a-Service" or "HTML-over-the-wire."

https://htmx.org/

https://hotwired.dev/

For all the turbo/stimulus/hotwire mix, you want to add a new feature just for the sake of adding it? or do you have a use case that fits the feature? if you have then you probably already have an implementation with a different technology (stimulus reflex? some custom websockets or ajax implementation? something with anycable?) and you have to check how to migrate from that technology to hotwire. If you just want to use the feature with no real need for it to practice then just pick any tutorial from the internet (like the intro in the official website https://hotwired.dev).

I was recently interested in similar topic. Here are 3 similar solutions I found:

* https://htmx.org/

* https://unpoly.com/

* https://hotwired.dev/

My personal preference is Unpoly (the idea of "layers" is awesome). But the best explanation of concept as a whole (HATEOAS, keeping app state on server using partial page updates, etc) is at HTMX homepage, and in these essays:

* https://htmx.org/essays/hateoas/

* https://htmx.org/essays/locality-of-behaviour/

At the end of 2020 the Basecamp team released a collection of Javascript libraries called Hotwire. Modern web stacks have popularized javascript-rendered front ends and JSON transmissions. Hotwire's primary motivation is to reduce the Javascript footprint and allow application front ends to be created in primarily HTML. It pairs very nicely with the Ruby on Rails ideology and is often demonstrated in that context. I aim to write a series on how Hotwire can be used in any application to simplify development and reduce the need for heavy Javascript downloads. Hotwire currently consists of two javascript libraries: Turbo and Stimulus. The first part of this series introduces Turbo.

I've been doing that a while until I just got sock of the JS spagetti and often duplicated code and went full on Angular CSR and never looked back. That being said, I've been seeing a lot recently about Laravel's Livewire and Symfony and Ruby on Rail's integration with Hotwire (stimulus+turbo).

This is (as far as I know) not documented and I had to dive into the sourcecode for both the inertia server runner and the Laravel command to start the server to understand what is going on. Here we go.

So here is a quick guide how to set up a new Rails 7 app using my favorite projects out there: Inertia and Svelte. You can also skip all this and download the endresult directly from here: https://github.com/buhrmi/rails7-starter

Might be interested in https://inertiajs.com/

Laravel Viltify is a heavily opinionated Laravel starter kit. It's intent is to seamlessly integrate Vue, Inertia.js, Laravel, TailwindCSS and Vuetify, so you don't waste your time learning how to do it and focus on writing your application, leaving setup behind.

Can't believe nobody recommended inertiajs here!

I would recommend InertiaJS for using Vue.js with Rails. It lets Rails continue to handle navigation so you don't have to replicate it client side. Same thing with views which gives you a very nice balance between an SPA and a fully server rendered app.

Now more than ever, it has become very easy to integrate React in your Laravel project, as opposed to before when one had to depend on APIs to connect the two stacks. This meant two different hosting environments and two Git repos to manage. But with InertiaJS we can build SPAs (single page apps) with your preferred front-end in one single project without need for APIs. Inertia has support for React, Vue or Svelte to use in your front-end. You pass data in your controllers as in any ordinary Laravel project, only difference is you're now rendering your views as JavaScript elements instead of blade. This can be done in two ways:

Awesome. I’m noticing a ton of “alternative” front end development tools these days: Hotwire, Stimulus Reflex, LiveView, Livewire, etc.

However I don’t think javascript is the fundamental blocker. When people say they dislike building SPAs, they probably mean they dislike APIs and the whole circus of double validations, error catching, form handling and cache invalidations that come with a React/Vue SPA.

Inertiajs[1] is a really solid middle ground of MVC goodness and client side interactivity.

[1] - https://inertiajs.com