You don't use a framework only when the project is big. You use it when the project could be inherited by someone else. A framework makes it much easier for different people to understand projects quickly.

You can see a report of the trade-offs between these two and between any pair of comparable technologies here .

I maintain a database of the pros and cons of things to make it easier for people to understand the differences. It doesn't have VueJS yet but if you would like to help people understand it, please go here and do a questionnaire for it. You can checkout the database here

Here is a database of application development technologies and their benefits (reasons for choosing them). It's very detailed and you can use it to see lists of the trade-offs between any comparable pair of technologies in the database. It also accepts corrections. So if you see anything that looks wrong, feel free to submit one.