maud

I would like to mention maud in this context: https://github.com/lambda-fairy/maud It is refreshingly different from other Rust templating libraries. It uses a proc-macro that compiles your HTML into Rust code. I also happen to use it in conjunction with HTMX and it works very well for me (at least in small projects). You will still have to learn a little bit of "special" syntax though, which you are looking to avoid if I understand you correctly.

I think a lot of us reach for Jinja-style templates so it feels a little more like we're writing bare HTML. But they're of course still just templates, and they need a build step before they become valid HTML. So it's true, if you're willing to use a DSL embedded in your server language (like JSX), then you'll have the full language tooling available to you. And this probably isn't giving up much over language-specific templates. A JSX-equivalent for the Rust server-side rendering world would probably be maud [1] or leptos [2]. [1] https://github.com/lambda-fairy/maud [2] https://github.com/leptos-rs/leptos

crates.io for Rust has 213 crates tagged "template-engine" https://crates.io/categories/template-engine handlebars, terra, askama, and maud are examples I recognize from high up on that list. Maud example: (chosen because it's the most "native Rust" in a sense and is designed for HTML specifically so I believe it's the closest to what you're asking for) html! { h1 { "Hello, world!" } p.intro { "This is an example of the " a href="https://github.com/lambda-fairy/maud" { "Maud" } " template language." } } https://maud.lambda.xyz/

The API in question is stable now, so that will change very soon: https://github.com/lambda-fairy/maud/milestone/1

seems like the FAQ is outdated regarding the authors view on that: https://github.com/lambda-fairy/maud/issues/181