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Doesn't datastar require an async backend? I prefer Django without async.

You still get a lot with a sync backend! Here I show Datastar using Flask: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7kHYIrI99A

Not really. DS v1.0 has HTMX like request/response option as well.

You might need async if there are lot of concurrent users and each of them using long duration SSE. However, this is not DS specific.