I'm not sure if the DOM is that slow actually, compared to raw code that can output at any time manipulating the DOM only has produce an update within the next

I'm not sure if the DOM is that slow actually, compared to raw code that can output at any time manipulating the DOM only has produce an update within the next frame for an external observer to perceive it as as fast as possible basically. Often the problem is probably that people are making too many DOM nodes (no virtualization), talking to the DOM inefficiently via a slow framework (React) and talking to the framework inefficiently (bad code).