It’s a whole different set of values. Good React code in 2026 looks like any compiling Elm code since 2016.
I get that some people like stability, but that is quite different from going without updates for 6+ years.
First, the comparison is perfectly fair. Elm 0.19.1, 6 years ago/0.19.2 today, React 16.1 6 years ago/19.2 today. Literally identical conditions. What is unfair? Which required app developers to do more work? Which saw more security issues among its releases?
Second, not needing updates for 6 years, and having zero security holes in that time, is the definition of stability. This isn’t really a matter of opinion or preference.
I do see the appeal in other frameworks (ecosystem size, easier to find devs), but the appeal of Elm truly is stability. And it really is that much better than nearly everything else that runs in the browser, in that regard.
No framework that allow you to use actual JS (or “transpiles” but gives you the full JS API, like Coffee/TypeScript), will ever offer the level of stability Elm offers (aside from maybe the web standard APIs on which Elm is narrowly built).
Almost all of it? Meanwhile Elm had extremely painful "Evan knows best" breaking changes that all but killed it and any momentum it once had
Today's Elm toolchain is the Elm toolchain of 6 years ago!