It seems you are confusing (conflating?) web pages with web app. >...constructing elaborate html pages on the server side and pushing it out and letting some b

It seems you are confusing (conflating?) web pages with web app. >...constructing elaborate html pages on the server side and pushing it out and letting some basic extra js stuff augment it. I will take server side rendered webpage up against a fancy js spewed template any day of the week. In every metric possible the server side render wins. Load speed, SEO, accessibility, file size, time to paint, time to render, time to interactivity. Not a single point goes towards the js rendered web page, period. In fact, it has almost every conceivable downside, including the obvious, it requires javascript. I develop webapps for a living, and I hate using them for browsing content, they suck for that. Vue.js/React/Angular for web apps all the way, for web pages/content, server side hands React its behind.