There's a question most developers quietly struggle with but rarely ask out loud: "Which framework should I use — and why?" Not because they don't care. But because the answer seems obvious until you actually have to make the decision. Then suddenly every blog post, every YouTube video, every Twitter thread is telling you something different. This article is about cutting through that noise. It's inspired by a Frontend Frameworks Mini-Conference held at LakeHub , organized by Zone01 Kisumu — where we spent a full day tracing the real story of frontend development, from the beginning. The Beginning: Vanilla JavaScript Before frameworks, there was just JavaScript. Raw. Unstructured. Completely yours to mess up. Early web pages were mostly static HTML with a little JavaScript sprinkled on top for basic interactions — form validation, toggling visibility, that kind of thing. It worked. Mostly.…