Turbo
ELI5 — The Vibe Check
Turbo (from Hotwire) makes traditional server-rendered apps feel like SPAs by intercepting link clicks and form submissions to swap only the page body via AJAX. No full page reload, no client-side routing library. It's the 'SPAs were a mistake, let's enhance HTML' approach.
Real Talk
Turbo is part of the Hotwire stack that accelerates server-rendered applications. Turbo Drive intercepts navigation for seamless page transitions, Turbo Frames decompose pages into independently updatable sections, and Turbo Streams deliver partial page updates over WebSocket or HTTP responses.
When You'll Hear This
"Turbo makes our Rails app feel like an SPA without writing JavaScript" / "Turbo Frames let us update just the comment section without reloading the whole page"
Related Terms
Alpine.js
Alpine.js is like jQuery had a baby with Vue, and that baby was really into minimalism.
HTMX
HTMX looked at the entire JavaScript ecosystem and said 'nah.' It lets your server send back HTML instead of JSON, and your page updates itself like magic.
Progressive Enhancement
Progressive Enhancement is the philosophy of building the basics first (HTML that works), then layering on CSS and JavaScript like frosting on a cake.