It isn't mentioned on the homepage, but Datastar does charge for the following features:
data-animate - Animates element attributes over time.
data-custom-validity - Adds custom validity to an element.
data-on-raf - Runs an expression on every animation frame.
data-on-resize - Runs an expression on element resize.
data-persist - Persists signals in local storage.
data-query-string - Syncs query string params with signal values.
data-replace-url - Replaces the URL in the browser.
data-scroll-into-view - Scrolls an element into view.
data-view-transition - Sets view-transition-name styles.
Wanted to include that this is so the development and maintenance of Datastar as a project is sustainable. And that they are a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
https://data-star.dev/star_federation#nonprofit-organization
I tried Datastar and it was great, then I saw this kind of move and it turned me down immediately.
I don't believe it is the right way to play. A Pro support would have been better. Plus the fact that the licensing prevent to use the Datastar Pro in any kind of open-source project. Very strange move.
So if Mozilla had offered to monetize by asking $299 to use the <blink> and <marquee> tags that would turn you off the rest of the browser? Or do you think you could make text blink another way?
Here's how you replace the URL without a page refresh:
Similar snippets for the other few and you have successfully avoided helping fund the framework!> So if Mozilla had offered to monetize by asking $299 to use the <blink> and <marquee> tags that would turn you off the rest of the browser?
I hadn’t thought about it, but yes. I say this as someone who paid for Netscape Navigator.
Then don't buy it, you probably need it
not sure i think this is a good way to fund their work BUT exploring models to make open-source sustainable for the developers does seem like a good thing, no?
I have no problem with anyone charging what they would like, but I do think it should be mentioned on the homepage. It feels intentionally left off which makes me think the developers themselves aren't 100% comfortable with the model.
Yes, it feels scammy. Like you, I've no problem paying for software if it seems worth it. I've payed a few times for Highcharts (different companies) and I did gladly and without hesitation, it also feels that they're being honest about their business model.
This feels incredibly unfair and harsh and is completely unfounded. What's the scam here?
Not a scam. It just feels the same as a scam feels.
One time I had a couch delivered. Two guys show up to set it up. One guy says he needs a tool from the truck and walks off, and the other guy starts talking to our dog, and tells us how he used to train pit bulls, and starts doing some weird hand motions and yelling commands to our dog like he’s casting a spell or something.
I think the guy was probably just not all there mentally, like too much former drug use or something. But it was one of those surreal moments where red flags were going off in my head. I went to find the other guy just to make sure he wasn’t robbing us out the back. Because that’s what it felt like: misdirection, social engineering, a performance.
In hindsight, I don’t think there was anything suspicious going on. But the alarm bells in my head were still completely real.
When we see this “everything is an plugin” but “plugin details are internal-only” and “plugin detail is coming” and “1.0 is released” and “but we will have 40 more release candidates before 1.0 final” and “you could support us with pro” and “you dont need pro” and “we don’t recommend pro” and “you can build anything in pro yourself anyway” and “you shouldn’t use this pro feature anyway and should use CSS instead”, and then when people ask a question about any of this inconsistency, we get juvenile responses like “don’t use it then”, “don’t buy it then”, “fork it then”, “my time isn’t free”, and so on. Even though there is no scam, it’s surreal. Like, “is this really happening?” It sets off the same red flags in people’s minds, even when there is no scam.
Datastar seems very cool as a tool, and the developers seem very technically competent. The problems they face don’t seem to be technical problems.
I don't think that's a fair read of their intentions given how they talk about it everywhere [1]. Pro isn't there to paywall great features, but there to support the development of complex and annoying ones. The example of `data-on-signal-patch` that moved from pro to core speaks to how they're thinking about the project.
[1] Time-stamped it for convenience: https://youtu.be/eMIB4Bkl08U?si=IfTslvZoGXVbou0w&t=1270
I think most people are not comfortable with making money or talking about money. Also people who are bad at making money might be bad at marketing/handling this.
They're completely comfortable with and unapologetic about the model. And they're not hiding anything.
Ok, so their homepage design unintentionally omits that pertinent information. I’ve wasted a couple of hours installing a FOSS package for a personal project only to find out one of the most heavily presented features was a paid add-in. Even if it’s bad communication design add not intentional, it feels like a salesey bait-and-switch tactic in that situation, and they probably want to know that.
Why is pro pertinent info? You probably don't need it. It's just a set of plugins and tools anyone could write if they needed.
What is it that you think is the most heavily presented feature that is actually behind a paid addin? Because they're quite vocal about the fact that most people should not ever need the pro license... They actively dissuade people from buying it.
Which feature are you referring to?
not the OP, but a lot of the referenced functionality looks like I might use it. The problem is I'm not going to bother trying this and investing any effort with even the looming possibility I'll need to pay to keep going. I don't think too many people approach this space with a purchase evaluation mindset like say, "I'm going to test out this grid to see if we should buy it". In that case pay-for advanced functionality is part of the approach from the start.
Also, I can't see this approach working. Getting enterprise adoption of a front end framework is almost impossible outside of React, let alone paying for a niche one, and the "contact us" approach is a non-starter.
Fair enough! That's up to you
If the core of the framework fits what you need, you could write those additional plugins yourself, rather than relying on the official "pro" ones. My understanding so far is the plugin architecture is intentionally designed for this usecase, so you aren't beholden to the official maintainers to add/tweak features for your specific usecase.
This makes the investment in the tool a lot safer, because you can always swap out pieces that don't fit your usecase, rather than start from scratch with a new framework.
In an enterprise setting, I don't believe the cost alone will be the factor that drives the decision. It'd be weighing up the value of the framework (e.g., UI framework/programming language agnostic stack, simpler architectures, delivery speed, performance, cost of using the framework on users) against the license cost.
> Getting enterprise adoption of a front end framework is almost impossible outside of React, let alone paying for a niche one, and the "contact us" approach is a non-starter.
Two questions on this:
1. Why do you think it's impossible to get org buy-in? 2. Why do those same orgs pick frameworks like Next.js, whose full benefits can only be realized with sophisticated and paid infrastructure?
as i've said in many comments and the devs say ad-nauseum, there's very little need for anything in the Pro license. the fully open-source library is sufficient for almost all needs. And it is easily extendable with plugins if you want more functionality than it provides.
i went looking for pricing info and it's the last item in the last menu on the website... it's not exactly up front. i was looking for a "pricing" top-level menu item first, which is pretty standard nowadays.
As ive said in many other comments - YOU DO NOT NEED PRO. The devs are very adamant about this - even aggressively so. 99% of apps will work just fine with the free library. Pro is for some bells and whistles, or just to support people who have invested many thousands of hours into making a genuinely innovative framework, and given it away
OK, then this approach will needlessly discourage adoption AND consume way more resources than it brings in. Under this structure the team needs to deliver the highest level of quality to the smallest paying audience without community support. Further, enterprise is very hesitant to pay for this as a product but are way more receptive to paying for support. Everyone would be much better served without a tiered free/pay product and paid support options.
>> or just to support people who have invested many thousands of hours into making a genuinely innovative framework, and given it away
I've never seen a corporation do this even with projects that don't try and encourage like here.
If an enterprise won't want to pay for the product, what makes you think they're more likely pay for support?
If you're implying they'll only pay when they've seen the value of the product, then the non-pro part of the framework is incredibly feature-rich and can easily do that.
Yeah support model for a lit of projects like this doesn't work. Even companies like the one behind NATS struggle. It's almost contingent on you building a bad product that needs support.
This is irrelevant to my comment. You claimed they're not hiding pricing and I'm simply saying it was a little hard to find ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> exploring models
This model of using deception to hide costs isn't exactly "exploring". It's tried and tested.
you're stretching the definition of deception here my guy-what do you want them to do? plaster a big sign on the landing page stating that this framework ALSO contains pro features that you have to pay for?
> what do you want them to do?
> plaster a big sign on the landing page stating that this framework ALSO contains pro features that you have to pay for?
Yes.
I for one don't enjoy being on the receiving end of these marketing dark patterns and manipulation tactics.
I've commented above that this seems like a bad approach, but it sure feels like a lack of awareness vs. an intentional dark pattern. The internet makes it so easy to assume the worst but I think this is a case where we should start with the most charitable interpretation.
Dark pattern? Pro plugins are built in the same way as is accessible to any user. What's the real issue?
That you have to go looking, actively, to realise there is a paid option.
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> what do you want them to do?
The common thing to do today is put a "pricing" menu item at the top right. That'd be fine.
> plaster a big sign
Yes!! That's table stakes. It's the bare minimum needed to not be considered malice.
Why? What is at stake?
Basic decency of being upfront about your business model, and in general being upfront and not being deceitful in life.
Anyways, constructively, they should add a usual pricing page with a nav for that at the top of the landing page.
It makes it clear that something is priced, right on the landing page.
In the pricing page the cards better make the costs super clear.
I'm confused. Datastar is a free open source framework that you can choose to use or not.
It's weird to call them out as indecent and deceitful for not actively marketing features that they really don't think you need. Even when you think you need it, they've actively encouraged people to analyze their problems to identify if it's a real need or a gap in hypermedia fundamentals knowledge.
Also, the top nav has a Pro page that has what you're looking for.
”Ready for liftoff?” should have a go-pro button. That’s all that is needed.
Why have a call-to-action to something they don't want you to do?
It's only there for Pro users and people who want to support the project [1] and not normal use.
[1] https://data-star.dev/essays/greedy_developer
I do think this is the most sustainable approach for monetizing open source projects, as long as the developer is fair about it. That is, truly make features that only large and/or enterprise users would have a use for, and only charge for those, instead of arbitrarily deciding to put core features of the software behind a paywall.
In the case of a web framework, that choice is a bit difficult. But if the software is fully functional for the large majority of users, then charging for niche features, or those that are actively discouraged, sounds like a fair approach to me.
I'm skeptical about this business model because it can become worse than proprietary software dependency over time. You get lured in by thinking it's open source and free, and might end up paying as much as the developer wants for essential features a few years later.
Like I said, it's crucial for the developer to be fair about it. Running a sustainable business built on open source is entrepreneurship on hard mode. Some companies do a better job at this than others, and, unfortunately, open source has been abused as a marketing strategy on many occasions.
No matter how you look at it, though, any business model that enables users to use open source software is a much better option for users than any proprietary software. There's no comparison. Given the choice, I'd much rather use OSS that is eventually rugpulled or enshittified than proprietary software, which carries those same risks, while also restricting my freedoms from the get-go, and having additional risks I might not be aware of at all (exploiting my data, security issues, etc.).
They're not even running a business on this - its literally registered as a 501c3 nonprofit. Its a labour of love that theyve shared with the world, and they actively tell people that the pro features are unnecessary for most projects. If you want those features or just want to support the project, the cost is quite fair, and just goes to things like traveling to do conference talks etc... They are not getting rich off of this.
Also, they intend for v1, which will be released soon-ish to be essentially the final version of Datastar. There wont be a need for much further development. So there's minimal risk of "rugpull" or even abandonment.
That's admirable. They just gained another sponsor. :)
I do think that they should be paid for this work, and be able to sustain themselves from it. So I wouldn't be against it being a business, or the project having a subscription model. The idea of open source being gratis, and products in general being "free", has done enough harm to the world.
100% so many projects have died because they didn't have a longterm plan to keep the lights on other than hoping for donations and or offering support that no one needed (the better the project the less likely you need support).
If they are charging for features, those features are a business, even if its a nonprofit business. There is also precedent for the IRS to consider it unrelated business income and to make them pay taxes on it, but that seems to be a huge grey area in US tax law.
LOL. What US tax law?
See for eaxmple the Mozilla IRS dispute as an example. Mozilla resolved this by putting their money making endeavors into a for profit org, which is in turn owned by the nonprofit, but the for profit org pays tax on their income. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/unrelated-business... See also
My point is that this administration isn’t really doing much enforcement.
Yeah it's a weird one people complain about open source projects having extra features you can pay for. But, then they also complain when you make open source GPL.
I'm sure it would be the same group complaining if it was GPL too.
Except the pro option is not "a few years later" it's available in pre-v1 and is a one-time lifetime purchase, not a subscription.
And the framework and docs are so small and simple, that you can read the entire site in an hour or two, in which time you would have noticed the pro features and pricing many times.
At the risk of repeating myself, I was talking in general terms about the business model and the uncertainty about the licensing it creates concerning possible future features.
I wasn't aware that they are a non-profit organization and agree that my remark doesn't necessarily apply to them since they're not a business. If the pro subscription helps them to maintain the open source project without making any profits, then that seems alright to me.
This is exactly what is done here. They're emphatic that most will/should never need the pro features.
Looking at https://data-star.dev/reference/datastar_pro#pro-features the features that stood out for me as things I would want to to use (and that don't feel particularly "pro" to me) are the animation features, data-replace-url, data-on-resize, data-scroll-into-view, the @clipboard() mechanism and, most importantly, the debugging tool.
My problem with this business model is that it has a chilling effect on open source contributions to the project, because it incentivizes the core maintainers to not accept community contributions that overlap with the paid features.
Datastar is currently in the Release Candidate phase of v1, which they seem to be certain will be the final form of Datastar. So, they're really not looking for "community contributions" to the core of datastar, other than for feedback to polish it off.
Moreover, ALL of the features are "plugins" - there's nothing stopping anyone from building and sharing their own. It is actually encouraged. In fact, in their next release they'll be releasing and documenting some sort of public API for plugins. Not sure exactly how it will differ from the current form though, since you can already make your own plugins.
They also intend to have some sort of free, open-source "marketplace" for community-built web components, based on their upcoming Rocket web component and Stellar css framework. You would just need to have the Datastar pro license to be able to use any of them.
I can see how this final part might be criticized, but it does seem quite fair to me. Sustainable open source is a big problem - in recent months ive had some important fully-open source dependencies disappear - even ones that were backed by well-funded companies. Moreover, Datastar is registered as a 501c3, and they really don't intend to "make money" from all of this. Its just to pay the bills, travel to conferences etc...
They're very reasonable people and open to all discussion in their discord. Im sure that whatever concerns you still have could be explained quickly if you went there.
In fact, i just posted there about this thread and how its overflowing with nonsensical complaints about how there's no link to or mention of Pro on the homepage - they said sure, we'll add a link.
Naming things really is hard. I can’t even with these names.
what's wrong with the names? they seem perfectly fine to me...
Also, btw, some of these - specifically data-replace-url - are strongly discouraged by the devs, to avoid footguns. I dont have experience with it, but people have spoken lots in their discord about how things like Hotwire Turbo are too magical and end up causing a lot of issues. Datastar strong recommends just using hypermedia as it was designed (HATEOAS https://htmx.org/essays/hateoas/) and doing full page reloads when you change a page. And for more ephemeral in-page changes, you can use the sse fragments morphing etc
You should probably update your comment to at least let people know this is a one-time lifetime cost. Not a subscription.
Which is priced similar to Tailwind UI, which people are fine paying for.
Yeah, I have no idea why someone would want to consider this over turbo + stimulus
Because turbo stimulus doesn't let you build a multiplayer spreadsheet performantly and realtime in a few hundred lines of code.
Those prices are for one off lifetime purchase too! That's crazy. I don't know why they bother. They'll never make back the money for the time they put in developing it.
Such a bad move. I told them they should charge more and actually have useful features in pro.
What a weird comment. Why bring this up unless you're just trying to make them look bad in a dishonest way? It is clearly documented on the site in multiple places.
Moreover, they actively dissuade people from even buying the pro license because they are quite emphatic that most people/sites do not need any of these features. If you do need them, then it's a small price to pay for the functionality, as well as to make a modest amount to cover costs for their non-profit org. God forbid someone optionally charge something for years of effort that they have given away for free...
It also comes with an immensely useful "Inspector" that shows all the signals, sse events etc, and will soon come with an immensely streamlined web component framework (Rocket) and css framework (Stellar).
I bought the pro license mostly just to support them, but the inspector is great and I look forward to checking out rocket and stellar.
I opened my HN client and saw multiple posts at the top of the home page about this datastar thing, with comments like yours either very aggressively defending it or praising it as the best thing since bread.
Did you forget one of those "full disclosure" thingies at the top of your comment?
In any case, I didn't see anything interesting about it, even less so after reading OP's useful comment on the pricing, but even if I did I would never intentionally use or give money to a company that does astroturfing campaigns.
Full disclosure: I'm a happy and grateful user and purchaser of the datastar pro license.
And it's not a company, it's literally 3 guys who have a 501c3 non profit, and actively dissuade people from buying the pro license because YAGNI.
This is an example of the entitled subset of people who come out of the woodwork whenever an open source project has any kind of monetization or even just a non-standard license prohibiting billion dollar companies from selling their project as a service.
I guarantee the fact that I referred to a project with an anti Amazon clause as open source will piss some of the off so much that they’ll comment here about it.
Same people who complain about GPL and other copy left licenses I imagine.
op: copies information from the website
you: "How dare you!!!!!"
There's a such thing as context and intent which are separate from content, and this is directed as much at the people who upvoted this particular content to the top comment as it is to the OP.
The conversation on this post is now centered around the fact that they have some premium features for sale.
Edit: Now there’s another post on the front page of HN accusing the datastar team of being greedy.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45537372
> The conversation on this post is now centered around the fact that they have some premium features for sale.
Oh the horror!!!!!!
The open core model is great and entitled buttholes, and open source warriors discouraging people from doing that is pretty horrible.
I mean it’s not war in Ukraine horrible but I think it’s awful that people expect you to work for them for free.
Posting documentation from the site != "people expect you to work for them for free."
Really an insane thing to see a comment that informs you of pricing for their pro package and have a horde of people jump in with "How dare you!!!?!?!"
I appreciated it. If I'm going to consider a framework I want to know if some of it costs money. Especially like 299usd.
Frankly your response seems very hostile and makes me wants to avoid them more.
How much do you pay big tech for your LLM subscriptions monthly? I'm really curious.
299$ lifetime which includes future features seems like a steal. I bought it and don't use it, but I'm excited to see what comes next.
You live in a bubble. 299 is a crazy amount of money for me. I am currently debating whether to pay for copilot at 20/mo or keep using the free version.
Even if I was paying for that, there's no comparison between AI and a web framework that has many free competitors.
You don't need to pay for datastar. As I've said befor I don't use any of the pro plugins (plugins anyone can build themselves for that matter).
Sad to see developers getting ripped off by AI. Copilot is junk. The whole AI bubble is just a tax powered by fear of missing out. Save yourself 20$ a month, learn to touch type, use snippets and download a local copy of the docs.
Just because something is overhyped doesn't mean it can't be useful. You can literally try it for free with vscode and figure out quickly where it saves you time and where it doesn't. I made a value judgement that it saves me more than 20usd of time. If it didn't I wouldn't pay for it. Developers are not idiots motivated by fomo.
Using it for vibe coding where you pay for every token - and end up paying hundreds over dozens of iterations, when it would have been easier to write it yourself - is probably closer to what you're talking about. That's a totally different use case.
If you're using vscode your going to experience one of the biggest rug pulls in history (even more so if you're using copilot). I mean wasn't copilot free until recently?
Developers are idiots (I include myself in that). The industry is myopic and completely driven by fashion.
It used to cost money, it's now free but it's quite limited. I'm sure it'll get more expensive later, but it is great value at the moment.
Not sure how you can rug pull an open source project...
What a world we're living in - I point out that a hostile comment is hostile, and I'm labeled hostile.
Once again, they aren't charging anything. Pay them if you want some largely-unnecessary features, or if you just want to support years of hard work and innovation. That's what I did.
But you do you.
If you're amenable to feedback, the impression I got from your initial comment was "a hostile comment pointing out another hostile comment". It assumed a negative motivation on OOP based on vibes and you ran with it. Even this comment's parting line:
> But you do you.
- seems like a truism. I get the feeling it's meant to be read as "I give up. You can keep whatever wrong viewpoint you have".
Finally a good-faith reply!
I concede that my original comment here was somewhat hostile, but only really the first line. And it wasn't even all that hostile - especially when the rest of the comment was really just informative and positive about datastar.
And, moreover, is standing up to poor behaviour - even if done in a somewhat hostile/confrontational way - really such a bad thing? It seems quite clear to me that they were not communicating in good faith - they didnt come to discuss features, philosophy about open source sustainability, or actual reality of the messaging on the site and their discord server.
Instead THEY are explicitly saying that Datastar's devs are being dishonest in some way for having a pro license (which, again, they quite clearly say most people should not buy) as a way to bring a modicum of sustainability to something that theyve dedicated years to and given 99% of the value away for free.
They could have said "This looks interesting, but I noticed that there's a pro license if you want to get some features. Are these features necessary? Is this price reasonable? Should we be against there being a 501c3 behind this? etc..."
But they did none of that. I think that all that a reasonable person can really conclude is that they're either the disdainful sort of person who thinks all code should be free for everyone, or that they are just trolling, or perhaps even that they dont like how datastar is challenging the status quo of webdev.
Hence, "you do you" - you interpreted it exactly as I intended.
I'm sorry people didn't immediately take to this financing model as well as you did. The average person is not as invested as you and most people are going to immediately switch off if they hear part of the functionality costs money and this isn't mentioned anywhere on the front page. Doesn't matter how "unnecessary" these features are, it's a bad look.
Plenty of other open source projects make money without attracting this kind of negative feedback. It's curious to me that you suggest everyone is intentionally being negative or malicious here, instead of looking at why the project caused such a response.
People pay for things all the time, why not (almost surely unnecessary) code? Why do you all feel entitled to free access to thousands of hours of very highly skilled devs' efforts (most of which they actually are giving away for free)?
Moreover, it is quite common for there to be pro versions of libraries these days - tailwind, all sorts of component libraries, etc..
> Plenty of other open source projects make money without attracting this kind of negative feedback
We dont seem to be living in the same reality. In mine, maintaining open source projects is a nearly-completely thankless, profit-less endeavour. It is a rare exception that someone can earn a living from it. And datastar's devs have zero expectation that they'll do so, even with this model - hence it is registered as a 501c3, and the funds will cover things like travelling to conferences to talk about it.
I think the pro version and charging stuff is totally fine. It's the lack of transparency that bothers people. I shouldn't have to figure out their profit model from HN comments. If you want to be paid for your work, charge for the whole library or make the free/pro distinction very clear to people. Don't try to hook them in with a free offering while locking features behind a paywall that they discover later.
Or if you want to be altruistic (as you keep referring to nonprofit) make it free and solicit donations/patreon.
The current approach is certainly a new one and I am interested to see if it pays off.
99% is already free. That seems pretty altruistic to me.
And they don't really care if it "pays off" - it's not meant to
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Didn't find anything about this on the main page.
Author of Datastar here. Most people don't need pro and it seems like putting it on the front page is actually marketing it instead of people finding it as the need the features. Not only should most people not use the features we actively push against it. The only thing that's really super valuable is the inspector which is a Dev tool
As someone who actually happily bought Pro, I completely agree with this. Inspector is great, and worth the (nominal) cost of Pro. I might use a couple other of the pro functions. I'm very much looking forward to Stellar CSS and Rocket Web component framework getting released - they'll DEFINITELY make pro worthwhile, and given that they are completely new, there should be no qualms about it being purely pro.
> It is clearly documented on the site in multiple places.
Hold up, so then why is pasting THEIR documentation into a comment weird?
lol. This is an absolutely insane response to someone simply informing the commentors that there is a price involved in the pro package.
because the implication in this and so many other comments is that they're dishonestly hiding something. There was no other commentary other than a large and prominent comment saying "Watch the fuck out everyone! There be $ hidden in there!"
All they did was post the price of the pro package!!!
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Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying for something different here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
You can always make your substantive points thoughtfully, so please do that instead.
Edit: two things I realized after posting the above: (1) you're the project creator! well, I can understand how anyone would react negatively given the critical things some commenters have been posting.
But also (2) you've been breaking the site guidelines in other comments too (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45539942). Ultimately we need you to stick to the rules, regardless of what other commenters are doing, and of course the same applies to them also.
(p.s. in case it's not clear, I'm a mod here and just trying to keep the peace a bit)
happy to abide, didn't read the guidelines so sorry about that @dang. yes it's quite interesting that we are getting slammed for making plugins in a way that literally any user has access to do own their own. hackernews is a wild ride for sure!
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the entire point is that the OP - and so many other nonsensical comments here- is implying that Datastar's devs are being sneaky, trying to trick you into getting hooked on datastar only to pull the rug later with some dark marketing patterns.
But, as youve said, the info is right there on the site.