Easy there tiger, React and others are compatible with server side rendering. They’re capable of being the “little bit of JS” on top. Everything will be ok.
I am well aware of server side rendering but you still need to send all that javascript to the client, whether it ran on the server or not. Wouldn't exactly call this a "little bit of js" on top :p
Let's see - one could have both server and client jumping through hoops rendering a client-side framework on the server and then hydrating it again on the client (including having to pull in all the tooling that would require)...or one could just use regular old templates.
There certainly is nothing wrong with going with simplicity over a solution that's overengineered for one's case, tiger.
I was a web dev in a previous lifetime and have gone to the backend for almost a decade now; one of these days I need to climb back up again. Threads like this one are intimidating in a way because there's just been So Much Development and everything I knew was wrong, except... it also still all works just fine! It's just the incorrect way of doing things now.
It's good to hear that maybe when the time comes, I can dip into React by using it as the sprinkle of JS that jQuery / jqxWidgets and such were for me the last time I did any of this.