If you use a framework like Meteor, a small version of your database runs on the client, so you don't have to keep re-implementing various DB functions/features to display data to users or waiting for a round trip to run a trivial query. The server code turns into a set of replication rules and various functions that should never run on the client (security, touches a lot of data, etc).

This way is good for CRUD apps, but may not be the best approach for others.