[debaserab2]

I usually specialize and grab a lightweight library that does exactly (or something I can hack on) what I need it to. The closest exact replacement I have found to datatables is ExtJS. ExtJS has a pretty large learning overhead as well, but is probably more flexible in terms of functionality in the end and has a much more sane API in the end (with the tradeoff of it being much less easy to reskin).

On the other hand, a lot of JS frameworks have tackled a lot of the problems that I used datatables for except in a much better way. Things such as data storage and retrieval, dom manipulation, smart dom rendering. A lot of times I don't need to reach for one of these libraries anymore because the problem is already handled elegantly enough at the framework level. AngularJS in particular really shines here.