Learning vue.js as the moment and loving it. However, it does make me wonder, when using a framework are you essentially cheating?

I wonder if framework only "users" can write raw code outside of a framework?

Why should that be cheating? Are gamedevs cheating when using Game engines like Unreal? Are ML engineers cheating when using PyTorch? Is a cook cheating when He uses bought knives instead of forging his own knives?

While its always good to have a grasp for the basics frameworks is building blocks that speed things up.

Almost no craftsman creates from rock bottom.

Unless its for artistic or principles.

But if you work fir your money, use frameworks and components.

Just make sure you learn how to use then, do not just throw them in along with copy pasted examples that just happen to work. ;)

It's not cheating unless you were thinking about those who learn libraries/frameworks before fully learning and understanding the language and how things could be done in a vanilla way. Those people would be, as you say cheating.