I am backend dev and dipping my toes in frontend dev for my side hustle.

It is a typical CRUD app (like most of them). I like the idea behind HTMX or datastar. I built a prototype in it as well. But then I pivoted to solidjs.

Some reasons for this:

1. Single backend API for web, mobile and any other platform

2. Some UI patterns which are suited for JSON REST APIs [#patterns]

3. Ability to support partial functionality offline.

#patterns

1. Showing a subset of columns in a table but have an option to view & edit each record in detail. In my case a dialog opens with editable checkbox. So it doubles-up as "view" and "edit". These actions render just another view of existing data. A round-trip to server is not desirable IMO.

2. Filtering, sorting on columns. HTML based solution becomes tedious if some of the cells are not plain text but instead a complex component like a <div>. Sorting json and rendering is much better experience IMO.

Edit: About solidjs & datastar

1. It has fine-grained reactivity which I find it appealing and it uses signals which hopefully will be standardized.

2. The compiled bundle size is much smaller than I expected. I have 24KB compressed js which is serves quite a lot of views, pages.

3. Datastar is amazing and I have added it in my toolbox.