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The virtual DOM automatically updates the real DOM for you, in a way that only touches the parts that have actually changed. Think of it like a diff.

This allows developers to focus on the business logic and presentation of their apps without worrying about how to update the DOM efficiently to match the current app state.

Hah! This is a fantastic question... isn't the whole point of HTML that it's a declarative markup language? Isn't the browser supposed to be focused on dealing with a diff between the markup/state changes - and doing it fast?

The DOM itself _is_ a virtual model thing... why do we need to abstract over it- and somehow get performance benefits from an abstraction over an abstraction? Afaik you can't even force a repaint beyond rAF...

Something doesn't smell right.

If you’re not sure of the “why” of react, I’ve found that Pete Hunt’s talk “Rethinking Best Practices” gives a great overview of the reasoning behind react. Especially from about 15:15.

https://youtu.be/x7cQ3mrcKaY