The standalone React library is okay. The virtual dom is not that necessary to do frontend, but it's at the core of what React is adding an extra layer of separ

The standalone React library is okay. The virtual dom is not that necessary to do frontend, but it's at the core of what React is adding an extra layer of separation between the DOM and React concepts. But other libraries have shown that it's not that necessary. The issue is the ecosystem. There's a lot of complicated architectures out there which only apply in esoteric context. Another issue is with the tooling. More often than not, we have templates that advertises making things simpler, but instead promotes complex and complicated tools that you should not add to your codebase. But more often than not, you only need to update the content of your web app, and do a few changes to the layout. For that you don't need a full blown frontend library. React shines when you want to do web applications, not websites. But they're all pretty much the same when it comes to the latter. htmx+alpine and the other similar solutions are better when you don't want to control the whole UI. But need to add interactivity to a few select place. Which is the majority of websites.