Comment by diggan

> Have you ever worked with just raw js?

Yes

> Anything more than a todo list becomes unwieldy almost instantly.

That's not a fact, just your personal experience

> Taking a small dependency to avoid that is well worth it.

Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes, no.

> Taking a whole “virtual dom” may be overkill though (looking at you, react)

In most cases, probably yeah. React was created to solve a specific problem a specific company experienced, then the community took that solution and tried to put it everywhere. Results are bound to be "not optimal".