React is a way to reduce calls of document.createElement using virtual DOM, ie using React.createElement. It’s JSX which is supposed to be a better way to call document/React.createElement. So what exactly does this compete with?
The main thing RawJS brings is ergonomics when creating element hierarchies of plain HTMLElement instances. I don't see JSX as something that does this very well. A lot of people don't like JSX, because its not JavaScript. There are other libraries that are better document.createElement() that work somewhat similar. RawJS isn't new in this regard, I just believe that it's better executed than the others.