You can come a long way with css animations or svg-updates. There are limitations and they are mostly connected to the latency part. For example, if you want a

You can come a long way with css animations or svg-updates. There are limitations and they are mostly connected to the latency part. For example, if you want a 60 fps animation created and the server is far far away, like the other side of the globe that could be an issue or if your connection is bad. With liveview, you cannot create offline apps without javascript for example. That is a big limitation. But since most apps don't really require offline capabilities that is not really a big issue. I have however tried to use a liveview hosted in Sweden from Japan (which is basically on the other side of the globe) and I didn't experience any noticable latency for simple html updates. I think if you're making a game, you'll still need to use javascript. But if you are just making a simple crud app you may not need it for at least most of the stuff. I still think creating modals or things that the user expects to be instant should perhaps still be done in javascript but for all the server requested data liveview is probably faster than your average SPA.