Going against the grain here, but I liked Stimulus so much I lifted it out of Rails and plopped it into a Phoenix app.
I think the problem here is a disconnect of assumptions. Stimulus isn't meant to be an alternative to React.
If your app is (tens of) thousands of lines of JS, and that is all you know a web app to be, then React may be a sensible, battle-tested approach for you.
But if all you need is a few dozen lines of JS to polish the UX of an overwhelmingly server-side app, then Stimulus is a neat way to encapsulate and surface it when desired. In Phoenix, it slots nicely between static HTML views and dynamic LiveViews.
I don't think anyone has ever suggested you should use Stimulus to try to replicate a SPA, and I imagine you'd have a very bad time if you tried.
I think the problem here is a disconnect of assumptions. Stimulus isn't meant to be an alternative to React.
If your app is (tens of) thousands of lines of JS, and that is all you know a web app to be, then React may be a sensible, battle-tested approach for you.
But if all you need is a few dozen lines of JS to polish the UX of an overwhelmingly server-side app, then Stimulus is a neat way to encapsulate and surface it when desired. In Phoenix, it slots nicely between static HTML views and dynamic LiveViews.
I don't think anyone has ever suggested you should use Stimulus to try to replicate a SPA, and I imagine you'd have a very bad time if you tried.