(shameless plug) Just for kicks I wrote the client side of https://watch.ly/ https://watch.ly/ without any frameworks (but used less/ejs/express). Also winrick

(shameless plug) Just for kicks I wrote the client side of https://watch.ly/ https://watch.ly/ without any frameworks (but used less/ejs/express). Also winricklabs.com It's a nice breather after writing AngularJS for six years... I'm sure with the next complicated UI I'll use some big framework (Spring+Leaflet or Angular...) However, I think the goal should be to reduce complexity and have your business/product be focused as possible. Watch.ly is literally just live hit counters. The live part gets challenging at some scale. But the product is focused.