You have to be very careful if you don't let it manage all your DOM changes, and in general everything is done via it, so it is basically a framework. AngularJ

You have to be very careful if you don't let it manage all your DOM changes, and in general everything is done via it, so it is basically a framework. AngularJS is much better than what we had before, but it is still not great, and a bit clunky .. hopefully the lessons will be learned and in the next cycle we'll get some nicer slimline things instead (though this cycle could take a few more years to run through).