This isn't a fair comparison because the 'base' underlying HTML/CSS/JS language is much more standardized and feature rich - tooling + ecosystem on top of that

This isn't a fair comparison because the 'base' underlying HTML/CSS/JS language is much more standardized and feature rich - tooling + ecosystem on top of that is just that. i'm personally a pragmatist who likes systems thinking - a hand coded form + CGI still works just as well as a full featured SPA to 'correctly fulfill' requirements, the variable in question is the requirements.