htmx Statistics 2026: Downloads, GitHub Stars, Django Usage, the htmx 4 Release

htmx is a small JavaScript library that lets you add AJAX, page updates and server-sent events to HTML using attributes, so the server can return HTML snippets and the page swaps them in without a front-end framework.

Carson Gross created it as the successor to intercooler.js, and teams working in Django, Rails, Laravel and Go use it to keep most logic on the server.

htmx has no company, revenue or paid plan to report. What it has is public download data, GitHub activity, developer surveys and a major release in August 2026.

Most sites load htmx from a CDN, which npm cannot see, so I use both npm and jsDelivr counts and explain what each misses. Data was checked on October 20, 2026.

htmx Statistics

htmx Downloads and CDN usage

htmx’s quick-start example loads it with a script tag from a CDN, and the library has no dependencies, so many sites never touch npm and npm likely undercounts real use. I looked at two public sources.

jsDelivr (a free CDN): The htmx.org package had 78,820,871 hits from September 19 to October 18, 2026, ranking 384th overall and 300th among npm packages served (jsDelivr API). Daily hits ran between about 2.1 million and 3.1 million.

Hits are requests, not unique sites or users, and they include repeat loads and bots. I did not pull a prior-year jsDelivr figure, so I make no growth claim from it.

npm: I pulled these from npm’s public downloads API on October 20, 2026.

• Growth: About 216% for the latest 30 days against the same window a year earlier, and about 97% for the latest 12 months against the 12 months before. I calculated both from the counts above.
• Scale: The CDN count is roughly 70 times the npm count for the same 30 days, which shows how much npm leaves out. I would not add the two numbers, because a hit and a download are different events.
• Caveat: npm and CDN counts include automated installs, CI builds and bots, and say nothing about how many production sites use htmx.

GitHub and open-source activity

• Stars and forks: About 49.4k stars and 1.7k forks on October 20, 2026. The forks figure is small next to the stars, which suggests many people starred it to follow it, not to build on a copy. That is my reading, not a measured fact.
• License: The repository’s LICENSE file is the Zero-Clause BSD license, which allows any use, copying and modification. Wikipedia also lists BSD 0-clause.
• JavaScript Rising Stars 2025: htmx ranked #4 in front-end frameworks and gained about 4.5k stars in 2025 (a rounded figure from the Rising Stars page). React regained the top spot from htmx, which had led the category in 2024.
• Contributors, releases and dependents: GitHub’s page showed no contributor count or release list when I loaded it. Wikipedia lists the stable release as 2.0.9 on April 20, 2026, but that was retrieved in April, so I would not call it current.
• History: Intercooler.js came out in 2013, htmx 1.0.0 on November 24, 2020, and htmx joined the first GitHub Accelerator cohort in 2023 (Wikipedia, citing the GitHub Blog dated April 12, 2023).

htmx 4 (released August 28, 2026)

• Release date: August 28, 2026, per the htmx 4 announcement. InfoQ covered it on September 18, 2026.
• Version number: It is the first major release since 2.0 in 2024, and it skips version 3. Carson Gross told InfoWorld, “Oops,” about the skipped number, per InfoQ.
• Main changes: The library now uses the browser’s fetch() API instead of XMLHttpRequest, attribute inheritance is opt-in, event names follow a new pattern, history no longer saves page snapshots in localStorage, and built-in morph swaps and an hx-partial tag were added. A 60-second default request timeout was also added (InfoQ).
• Size: InfoQ says the script stays around 14 KB. The htmx site says both about 14k and about 16k min.gz in different places, so I would say “roughly 14 to 16 KB” and check htmx.org before quoting.
• Rollout: htmx 4 is on npm’s next tag, not latest, so people using unversioned CDN links are not upgraded by accident. The htmx team says it will become latest “at some point in 2027” (the site) or “early 2027” (the announcement), and 2.x will be supported indefinitely.
• Impact on the numbers: The npm counts above are for the latest tag, which is still 2.x. That means they do not show htmx 4 adoption yet.
• Reception: InfoQ reports more than 700 points on a Hacker News thread and more than 300 upvotes on the r/htmx release post. Those are engagement counts, not adoption.

Developer surveys

• JetBrains and Django Software Foundation, Django Developers Survey 2025: 24% of respondents used htmx, up from 5% in 2021. Alpine.js grew from 3% to 14% over the same period. The survey tabulated responses from more than 4,600 Django developers. This is a Django-only sample, so it shows htmx among people who already like server-rendered Python, not among all developers. The write-up gives no exact fieldwork dates.
• State of JavaScript 2025: The front-end frameworks page says htmx and Alpine.js switched places in the usage rankings. The text I could read gives no percentages or ranks, because the survey’s charts load dynamically. It also names no gain in interest for htmx.
• Stack Overflow: I did not find htmx usage in the Stack Overflow results I could read, so I give no figure.

Surveys draw self-selected respondents, so each reflects the people who answered.

htmx Size and efficiency claims

• Dependencies: None, per the htmx site.
• Size: About 14 to 16 KB gzipped (see above).
• “67% less code than React”: The htmx site says a real-world React-to-htmx port cut the codebase by 67%. That comes from one essay about one project, so treat it as an example, not a benchmark.

Sponsors

The htmx site (read October 20, 2026) lists one platinum sponsor (commspace), one gold sponsor (SerpApi) and 23 silver sponsors, including JetBrains, GitHub, Craft CMS and ButterCMS. It gives no amounts.

I found no outside funding round or acquisition for htmx.

htmx Market share

I tried to read W3Techs’ htmx page and it failed to load, so I have no verified share of websites. Because most sites load htmx from a CDN with a script tag, detection tools can find it, but I have no figure to report.

htmx Pricing and cost

htmx is free under the 0BSD license. The cost is developer time and the server work that comes with returning HTML from the back end. For one market’s build rates, see our website development cost in India guide.

What the htmx numbers suggest?

• Interest is high and still growing. About 49,400 stars, a #4 Rising Stars ranking and roughly 79 million jsDelivr hits a month.
• npm greatly undercounts htmx. The CDN figure is about 70 times larger, so any claim built only on npm understates use.
• Growth looks strong but unexplained. npm downloads rose 216% year over year for the latest month, and I cannot tell how much of that is new sites and how much is automation.
• It is popular among Django developers. 24% of 4,600+ respondents, up from 5% in 2021.
• The 2026 story is htmx 4. It is out, but it is not the default on npm yet.
• No verified count of production sites. Nothing public measures that.

FAQ

Sources

• GitHub: bigskysoftware/htmx (Oct 20, 2026) and its LICENSE file
• npm downloads API for htmx.org: 2026, 2025, Oct 2025 to Oct 2026 and Oct 2024 to Oct 2025 (queried Oct 20, 2026)
• jsDelivr API: htmx.org, last month (Sep 19 to Oct 18, 2026)
• htmx 4.0.0 announcement (Aug 28, 2026; project source) and htmx.org (read Oct 20, 2026)
• InfoQ: htmx 4 released, by Daniel Curtis (Sep 18, 2026)
• JetBrains: The State of Django 2025 (October 2025)
• JavaScript Rising Stars 2025 and State of JavaScript 2025: front-end frameworks (2025)
• Wikipedia: Htmx (version history; secondary source)