For the past several years I've started new personal projects with PostgreSQL+Python+[Flask|Django] on the backend and Bootstrap+Knockout on the frontend. I recently tried to start a new project with React instead, and while the actual act of development on a working React-based codebase is fairly nice, getting it to that state apparently requires a load of dependencies that I simply wasn't prepared for.
I retreated back to using Bootstrap alone for the prototype and found it much easier to work with than I remember. I'm sure part of that is that I've gained a ton of experience since I last used jQuery without a UX framework like Knockout, Ember, or React - but part of it also seems to be that browsers have come a long way since then.
In fact, I'm considering eschewing all front-end dependencies for my next prototype - ES6 has far better support in modern browsers than I recall, as do the more recent CSS capabilities like flexbox.
I figure that at best I'll have a lightweight, clean project that works well enough for a prototype; at worst I'll learn a lot about where modern web standards are.