At the start of node.js, I frequently saw full web applications written in it "traditionally", fetching data and writing it into pug/haml/jade/handlebars/whatev

At the start of node.js, I frequently saw full web applications written in it "traditionally", fetching data and writing it into pug/haml/jade/handlebars/whatever else templates (during the callback-pyramid-hell days). It was pretty much just another stack like a less opinionated django. People used express, returned HTML, etc. Then the SPA frameworks came into the fray, and I never really saw node.js being used server side like that much anymore.