JSX in AppRun is optional. You can use lithtml or just html. https://apprun.js.org/docs/#/06-view-patterns
I'm not React dev although my last job was in React, previous was in Angular.js, the one before that in backbone.js and the one before that in jQuery, and the one before that in IE5.5 raw JavaScript.
JSX is pretty established and focused (optional) language extension which I was initially cautious about as well. Svelte extensions feel for me a bit more adhoc and mandatory.
I'm judging and comparing because I'm interested in frameworks and templating engines. Building stuff to judge something is fine but I have no need to build anything at the moment so I prefer now reading the code of stuff that other people have built and consider if it's a pleasant read for me. Svelte isn't same way angular.js wasn't. AppRun is, possibly even more than React was (at least the React before hooks).
EDIT
Hyperapp looks similar but as far as I can tell it doesn't have event bus.
I worked with one large project (google maps competitor) in raw JS that used event bus and it was really amazing how much you could understand about it just hooking yourself to the bus and inspecting all events that go through there, knowing that nothing happens behind your back.
So that's a clear win for me in AppRun vs hyperapp.
Although AppRun seems to have one event bus per component so hooking up to all of them might require a bit of effort and tickery.
Another thing is stateful components. Hyperapp doesn't have clear way of making stateful components. People are just winging it in various ways.