As a backend developer, where do I even start with frontend? Feeling major choice paralysis

https://feddit.dk/post/16873232

As a backend developer, where do I even start with frontend? Feeling major choice paralysis - Feddit.dk

I’m an experienced backend developer. To me, the backend world seems super simple compared to the frontend world. It seems like there are a million options and I don’t have the experience to say what’s good and what’s not. I’m hit with major choice paralysis, basically. I don’t have any special requirements - I “just” want to build a pretty standard, responsive, modern-looking UI. Ideally without too much boilerplate, in a framework that “feels good”, in a way that might at some point attract other contributors as well, if I get to the point of open sourcing. Of course I could just reach for the most popular thing i.e. React, but that doesn’t seem to be the “hip” thing to use nowadays (or maybe I’m wrong? What do I know, I’m a backend dev). But even if I choose a framework, there’s a million other libraries out there to choose as well. For instance, which UI library to choose? What about observability and state management and authentication and so on? Sorry if this is a bit ranty. I am honestly just looking for an experienced frontend developer to point me in some direction (i.e. some set of frameworks/libraries; a “stack” if you will), so I can get out of this choice paralysis. What would be your go-to stack for a new frontend project today?

Using ‘raw’ JS/CSS/HTML is a coveted skill. A lot of people forgot and/or never learned how to do that. Those over engineered frameworks are essentially a form of premature optimization, and in many cases obsolete because modern browsers already implement their whole reason for existing.
It just doesn’t seem like best practice to do raw JS/CSS/HTML from what I read online? I get that for maybe small sites where you just need mostly static pages, that might be fine, but if you want any complexity and flexibility, isn’t raw JS/CSS/HTML sort of limiting? I.e. you’d end up doing lots of complicated stuff that you’d build yourself instead of using a framework.
Look into Tailwind CSS and Alpine.BS for some pretty uncomplicated foundational level systems to build off of