I rather like the fact that DataTables doesn't try and solve the whole problem (front end and server back end) - otherwise you end up with things like ASP.Net server controls and DataGrids which are really just an attempt to port desktop development approaches to the web - creating an unpleasantly leaky abstraction along the way.

I find that using DataTables as front end and hooking it up to a backend is pretty straightforward and results in a nice separation of concerns - let the server/database worry about paging, sorting, searching and filtering. Of course, if you have a relatively small amount of rows then just let DataTables do all the work - but at least you have the choice.