Yes, AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, but You don't have to use those languages specifically, you can implement ajax with just about any client side language that uses the XMLHttpRequest object in order to make a background request to the web server. These background requests are made and loaded to the page independently from the the rest of the page and as such are asynchronous in nature (though they don't have to be), and allows portions of the page to be updated without making a full request to the server. The connection is NOT continuous, the background requests still have to be called whether it be programatically or caused by user interaction (such as a mouse click), it's not a constant stream of data (though a well programmed application and fast enough connection can make it appear so). So essentially AJAX is any group of technologies that allow you to exchange data in the background between the client and the server. JavaScript and the XMLHttpRequest object are the most commonly used technologies to create this behavior in webpages because of the high level and ease DOM manipulations JavaScript can perform.