https://houdini.how/ has some neat examples of what you can do with Houdini
https://github.com/ConradSollitt/css-houdini-fractals
It's similar to rendering with canvas. houdini.how is a Chrome Labs Site from Google and allows authors to submit demos. I would recommend creating a demo on it for any developer that wants to try Houdini.
Is that the underlying tech being new and slow, or the specific implementations using it on the gallery?