[JDDunn9]

The virtual DOM isn't a replacement for the DOM, it's just a string diffing algorithm. It is only needed because of React's "render everywhere" approach, which is a tradeoff sacrificing efficiency for simplicity. If you don't re-render the entire page any time the model changes, you don't need a virtual DOM.

[mercer]

I'd say your mostly right with the one caveat that a virtual DOM also helps out with batching changes to the DOM, but I suppose there are other ways to make that happen.