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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 21/09/2026

And the VSCode extension for Datastar just got support for syntax highlighting and language-service features for Rocket components. marketplace.visualstudio.com/items/starfe...

A Rocket component in the VSCode IDE, showing syntax highlighting.

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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 29/01/2026

We’ll be going live in an hour and have some fantastic demos coming. You might even see yourself in one of them!! youtube.com/live/lc48MUn...

Datastar Discord server avatars on a world map.

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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 15/10/2025

Blinksy just learned to redraw itself on Checkboxes when things get out of sync. It has achieved sentience. I am now obsolete.

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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 14/10/2025

Datastar demos have started cross-pollinating. Soon they’ll form a hive mind and ship the next release themselves. Blinksy: play.putyourlightson.com/blinksy Checkboxes: checkboxes.andersmurphy.com?x=1312&y=1310

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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 10/09/2025

Having a blast making some final demos for my upcoming #CraftCMS talk at Dot All Lisbon 🇵🇹, using Datastar.

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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 28/08/2025

My upcoming #CraftCMS Dot All conference talk will feature real-time demos with audience participation. This is me load testing 100 virtual users, each clicking on a random cell to toggle it on/off every 1 second. The CPU purrs along at 100% and memory remains well within capacity.

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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 20/08/2025

Ran the test again with gzip enabled for event streams and I’m getting a compression ratio of 30:1. Pretty sweet for a one-line config change.

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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 19/08/2025

Load testing a VPS ahead of my upcoming #CraftCMS conference talk, in which I’ll be inviting audience participation. This tests up to 100 users hitting the server every second for 30s. Datastar has no problem receiving almost 90MB in over 1k events, and the server purrs along at 100% CPU.

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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 31/07/2025

I love simple, transparent benchmarks, and this one doesn’t disappoint: measuring the time to swap large numbers of DOM elements. The repo can be forked and tests varied thanks to excellent work by Zach Williams 🚀 github.com/zachwill/ben...

Measurements of the time to swap large numbers of DOM elements.

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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 10/07/2025

It finally happened – we launched the new Datastar site and V1 (RC) 🚀 It’s been an incredible journey, and I feel honoured to be working with people like @data-star.dev and Johnny Stevers. And there’s so much more yet to come!! data-star.dev

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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 08/03/2025

Datastar has since added `data-replace-url`, an `executescript` SSE event, and the ability to load plugins during runtime – everything you need to build custom history functionality. I still question the value of this in practice, though.

A browser history window showing every search term that was sent to the backend.

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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 19/02/2025

Here’s a teaser of something I’m going to demo in tomorrow’s @craftquest.io livestream. I think you’ll want to see it! #CraftCMS craftquest.io/livestreams

A teaser of a demo entitled “Live Edit”.

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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 28/01/2025

This example was shown using the PHP SDK. Not a long-lived connection, but one that stays alive only as long as it needs to. Configuring the backend to stop processing the request if the browser window is closed as as easy as adding a single line of code.

A one-line command to allow the script to stop if the connection is closed.

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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 28/01/2025

All Datastar SDKs will soon ship with a “Hello, world!” example that demonstrates fragments being streamed to the browser in a single response–all in just a few lines of code. Here you can see the DOM updates on the left, and the SSE events being streamed on the right.

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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 02/01/2025

Kicked off 2025 by releasing Datastar v1.0.0-beta.1 🚀 After a grueling couple of months, Delaney and I are delighted to finally tag a stable API that is as close to perfection as we can possibly imagine. Datastar is reactivity made declarative. Release notes: github.com/starfederati...

A code sample showing how Datastar makes frontend reactivity declarative.

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Ben Croker @bencroker.com · 17/12/2024

Sorry Alpine.js, but this is *not* the way. Declarative hypermedia with Datastar is *the* way. data-star.dev/guide/gettin...

A “load more” button built with Alpine.js.

A “load more” button built with Datastar.

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