[guidopallemans]

What's wrong with the old PHP+html ways? It's one of the best toolchains to knock out a small to medium sized project. I guess that fundamentally, it's not scalable at all, or can get messy wrt closing tags and indenting. But with this approach I think you're good on both these aspects?

[johnisgood]

For websites you make for Tor, you would typically go for PHP or OpenResty, as it needs to be JavaScript-free. I personally aim for JavaScript-free projects regardless.

Of course if you want client-side whatever, you need JavaScript.

[skeledrew]

JavaScript is optional even on the client side nowadays with the advent of PyScript via WASM, etc.