Over a certain size, some level of abstraction will usually produce a meaningful reduction in code size in most applications. It's possible for some applications a virtual DOM is the abstraction to achieve that, although I don't think I've seen this in practice. It would require an absolute mountain of "document.createElement() / appendChild() / setAttribute()" code before the lighter syntax of a virtual DOM would net a meaningful size reduction with a modern compressor like Brotli.

Just saying there are probably situations where these might still offer a genuine functional benefit, simply by virtue of offering abstraction.

There are a bunch of replies here focusing on how nice to use virtual DOMs can be, would gently encourage those folk find another industry to ruin.