It's an alternative in the same way e.g. plain markdown is an alternative to HTML, even though plain markdown lacks some of the features of HTML. "X is an alte

It's an alternative in the same way e.g. plain markdown is an alternative to HTML, even though plain markdown lacks some of the features of HTML. "X is an alternative to Y" in this sense doesn't mean "X all the same features of Y", it means "you might reasonably choose to use X instead of Y, depending on your exact usecase"