I've dropped Knockout simply because it is the easiest way to paint yourself in the corner. Its magic is ok for the simplest cases.
Went with backbone, less magic, but solid foundation.
I'm working on a pretty major project with Knockout, and that's not really been my experience.
The "magic" is basically "it has two-way data binding". Which is magic, but no more so than the same feature in Angular, Ember.js, or the relevant Backbone plugins. Two-way data binding is pretty magical; if you need it that's probably good, if you don't really need it, it's bad.
Comparing vanilla Backbone to Knockout seems a bit odd; they have almost no overlap, and they don't really solve the same problems. Conversely, if you are using Backbone to solve a Knockout-style problem, it's either not really the sort of problem Knockout is designed for (ie, no need for two-way data binding) or you've added a bunch of magic onto Backbone (either through writing it yourself or using one of the many plugins for Backbone).
I just don't think you can use Backbone, solve the sort of problems that Knockout is good for, and have less magic. Two-way data binding is magic, and it's like...90% of what Knockout does. Either your stack includes that magic, or you can't compare yourself to Knockout.
The "magic" is basically "it has two-way data binding". Which is magic, but no more so than the same feature in Angular, Ember.js, or the relevant Backbone plugins. Two-way data binding is pretty magical; if you need it that's probably good, if you don't really need it, it's bad.
Comparing vanilla Backbone to Knockout seems a bit odd; they have almost no overlap, and they don't really solve the same problems. Conversely, if you are using Backbone to solve a Knockout-style problem, it's either not really the sort of problem Knockout is designed for (ie, no need for two-way data binding) or you've added a bunch of magic onto Backbone (either through writing it yourself or using one of the many plugins for Backbone).
I just don't think you can use Backbone, solve the sort of problems that Knockout is good for, and have less magic. Two-way data binding is magic, and it's like...90% of what Knockout does. Either your stack includes that magic, or you can't compare yourself to Knockout.