Ask HN: Best simple web framework without “magic”?

I’ve become very disinterested in all of these web frameworks where there is so, so much underlying code tucked away in a node_modules directory or some equivalent even for the simplest of apps.

I’m not particularly interested in going back to raw HTML/JS/CSS, so hoping to find a halfway point.

Some of my early searches have led to frameworks like Mithril.js, which seem to be relatively simple. Does anyone have any other suggestions for someone who prefers simplicity over “magic”?