When it comes to reducing complexity—especially for Java developers—it’s worth checking out Vaadin.
It lets you build full web UIs without touching HTML, CSS, or JavaScript, entirely in Java. The UI logic runs on the server, meaning: no API design, no JSON mapping, no Redux — just a Java object model.
Vaadin follows a true full-stack approach, where frontend and backend live in a single codebase. Combined with Spring Boot or other JVM frameworks, this creates a cohesive Java application—no complex build pipelines, no split repos, and no friction between frontend/backend roles.
What I personally enjoy most is the smooth developer experience: you see your changes reflected in the browser instantly — no manual builds, reload fiddling, or sluggish toolchains - just java and a bit of maven. For many internal business apps, it feels just as “plain” as the old-school server-rendered apps—just with modern capabilities like Web Components and security by default.
(Full disclosure: I work at Vaadin, but I’m genuinely a fan of the approach because it saves developers a lot of headaches.)
This still of programming does not adhere to MVC though, you can't ever swap out the frontend because it's basically merged to the backend and I suspect complex to debug simmilar to JSF.
All MVC (or rather something more modern like MVVM) happens on the server in this scenario, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen at all.
A different View + ModelView on top of the same Model could then be used to provide a different frontend if that is ever required (in practice, it probably won't be).
So a pattern is not mandatory with Vaadin, but you can make the UI “simple” changeable with a corresponding pattern of your choice. MVP and MVVM would be good examples of this.
Have you tried one of the latest versions?
Disclaimer: I work for Vaadin.