- 1kb + jQuery is bigger (or almost the same size) as the other ones without jQuery (except Ember.js). - Comparing template engines only (with the riot solutio

- 1kb + jQuery is bigger (or almost the same size) as the other ones without jQuery (except Ember.js). - Comparing template engines only (with the riot solution having less features) doesn't give a complete picture for comparing speed. There are dozen of other parts to make a web app. The template is only a small part. Benchmarks aren't even a good way to compare speed. It's how the user feels when using the resulting app and interacting with the UI that matters. - TodoMVC is a very small app for comparing productivity. E.g. your router implementation doesn't take into account IE bugs, and researching such bugs instead of using a proven solution can be less productive. I agree with you that modular and maintainable web apps can be developed with jQuery only, and even plain JavaScript only. I dislike, as much as you do, "Backbone developers", "AngularJS developers", "Ember.js developers", etc. who can use only one framework, can't properly structure an app without using a framework, and claim that the framework they use is the only good one to solve any problems and build any type of app. A good developer should be able to choose the proper solution for a particular problem. There's no one size fits all solution for every problem.