Django and Sails.js both seemed like they were a step down in terms of general productivity, though each had a unique advantage of their own (admin out of the box, websockets & realtime features).
I haven’t had a chance to really give RedwoodJS a trial run, but it's the JS-based fullstack framework I'm most curious about.
Maybe my first update experience with Laravel was a bit of a mess (v4.2 to v5.0 "The recommended method of upgrading is to create a new Laravel 5.0 install and then to copy your 4.2 site's unique application files into the new application. This would include controllers, routes, Eloquent models, Artisan commands, assets, and other code specific to your application."), and I couldn't easily "see" the models' properties and the Facades, that's why I have shy-ed away from it a bit. I have worked with several Laravel applications since then and have gone through the v6 through v10 upgrade cycle and can say it's gotten easier (though I wish they could settle on a release schedule), but my preference is still Symfony.
Plus when I checked out Django, I felt a bit more "at home" (e.g. see Twig templating language and how they used Django templating language as inspiration).
I've worked with Vue.js and AngularJS 1 and Angular 2+, but I'm glad htmx is coming in strong, so I can focus on logic, speed and stability instead of glueing the frontend and backend API together and debugging in the different browsers.