Disclaimer: I am not a professional web developer. I have never seriously done front-end work.<p>I am writing an web application in Elixir/Phoenix. It is an app with many categories that does not fit the single-page application model.<p>That being said, I want it to look and feel like a modern web application by 2017's standards. Ideally, I could use a lean JavaScript framework for interactive UI elements, validation, assorted bells and whistles, etc.<p>Everything I've come across seems like absolute overkill for my needs. It's also hard to find a framework that isn't tightly coupled with the SPA label. I do not want to work around an SPA framework, nor do I wish to force my app to be an SPA.
If you just want simple HTML I would suggest Express [1] with Nunjucks [2]. Use Express as your webserver/router and Nunjucks as your view layer. Nunjucks is very similar to Jinja2 and other common Mustache/Handlebar templating languages.<p>[1]<a href="https://expressjs.com/" rel="nofollow">https://expressjs.com/</a>
[2]<a href="https://mozilla.github.io/nunjucks/" rel="nofollow">https://mozilla.github.io/nunjucks/</a>