I believe React is popular (among other reasons) because you don't need to learn what is v-if v-else and other repeative commands when you have plain and simple JS equivalents.
React has te philosophy "It jusy works", and people love this
React has te philosophy "It jusy works", and people love this
I don't know how these frameworks compare in bigger sized applications, but if you just do a POC in Angular2, React and Vue.js, then React beats all of them. This probably leads to many people considering React for their new applications.
If you go for bigger stuff, I don't know which would be better. I like React, but I also found it a bit cumbersome to create all these Redux actions and stores etc. Also async stuff, especially righ datarate websocket stuff, seem a bit awkward with Redux.
Much of the core is shakeable, I don't believe your assertion at all. As you use more features, the app size would grow would be true due to using parts that were previously shakeable becoming unshakable, but that complexity being in a unified language/base of a framework worked on by very smart people is most of the time better than homebrewed business logic by an above average developer
React is quite big, I think about 50kb.