One "alternative" is to do the minimum possible in the browser, and do most of the work on the back end.

For example, if you inspect this page, you'll see that it has about 150 lines of Javascript.

There are two ways to change a webpage:

- manipulate it with Javascript

- reload a new page with the changes applied

If your page loads quickly and not all that often, you can get pretty far without Javascript. If you are willing to tolerate a pageload on each interaction, you don't need any Javascript.