Comment by EvanYou

The biggest technical difference is probably the model observation mechanism - Vue.js observes model objects by converting their properties into ES5 getter/setters and make them implicitly emit events instead of dirty checking.

Design decision wise, it's mostly about simplicity, so no dependency injection, no pre-compiling jsx, no $digest/$apply, no services/factories etc... it's mostly up to you how to structure your app.

It also does not include routing/ajax/REST resource parts and focuses on the interface only. It is designed to be module ecosystem friendly (e.g. Component/Browserify) so you can easily leverage other libraries to fill in the missing pieces.