You probably need the right tool for the job. I'd argue that react, Vue, and company are only best for true web _applications_, that is highly stateful projects

You probably need the right tool for the job. I'd argue that react, Vue, and company are only best for true web _applications_, that is highly stateful projects that are more akin to standard desktop apps than web pages, ex: google docs. If you need server side rendering that could be a sign that what you have is a lot of public indexable information and that most often describes a traditional web site instead. In that case your "old school" rails or laravel solutions are almost definitely a better choice.