HTMX is certainly easier, but it's the worse if you want to actually learn FE
HTMX allows you to learn the very basics: the HTML which is almost verbatim turned into DOM which the browser renders. It's the FE. Everything else is layers upon layers of abstraction which ultimately compile down to the DOM representation of HTML.
...or to put it differently, quoting HTMX's author: using HTTP to transfer HTML? How queer!