I'd even argue that small web apps are easier in vanilla JS. There is a definite threshold where that flips, and inside every small web app is a large one waiti

I'd even argue that small web apps are easier in vanilla JS. There is a definite threshold where that flips, and inside every small web app is a large one waiting for its time to shine. I've been struggling with how to write about and fix this paradox for a long time. We start with the heavy weight infrastructure because we don't know how large our application will end up. Small teams use microservices. Small teams build large continuous integration pipelines and strain under the complexity. That's partially because the large teams have built open source ecosystems that make dealing with that complexity mostly invisible. That's partially because we all neglect YAGNI. And it's partially because we need better patterns on how to in-time scale our complexity.