The original inspiration came from a talk by John Sundell, https://atscaleconference.com/videos/backend-driven-native-u... I wrote more about it here: https://medium.com/bourbonltd/productizing-backend-driven-ui...

I only learned about Jasonette a couple of months ago and it's interesting how in some areas both Engine and Jasonette intersect.

When comparing to Jasonette, Engine has a built-in design system and any data fetching / processing is done completely server side. All templates are versioned and stored on the server making it very easy to iterate / A/B test on a live product.