Is this like Hotwire or Livewire?

Similar ideas, yes, “HTML over the wire”, but different tech stacks.

Livewire is Laravel based.

Hotwire is mostly Rails based (although it can be used without Rails, but I guess it’s easier if you use Rails).

Elixir has something similar too with Phoenix LiveView.

The AHA stack is a full-stack JavaScript concept.

You do all in JavaScript, as Astro is a (backend) JavaScript framework

Although the “A” of Astro can be swapped.

If you prefer coding in Python, use Django instead of Astro. Use Go, use anything. Use Rust or OCaml or anything. The important thing is that the server renders some HTML, and it’s fun for you to use. That’s the only requirement.

Even the other parts can be swapped.

Don’t like htmx? Use Alpine AJAX or Unpoly or Datastar.

Don’t like Alpine.js? Use any other client-side library for declarative-style “sprinkes of interactivity” like petite-vue.

Labeling “AHA” for the specific set of Astro, htmx and Alpine helps being more specific with how-to guides.