jQuery vs React – Which One is Better?

When it comes to comparing the two most popular libraries in the market – jQuery and React, the results can be based on their functionalities, features, usage, and performance. Each feature of these technologies has its own pros and cons. This blog focuses on the comparison of jQuery vs React, and how these JavaScript libraries are different from each other.

jQuery came into the market in the year 2006 and at that time, JavaScript was not as popular as it is now. Since its launch, jQuery has altered the fate of web user interfaces and the main reason behind it was that it allowed developers to create interactive experiences without any issues. On the other hand, React came in the year 2013 and since then it has achieved a wide fan base among the techies. React library is easier to adopt because of embedding HTML within JavaScript. It allowed the developers to effortlessly manipulate HTML and create sophisticated, single-page applications, React can also be used for building large Applications like Facebook.

This shows that both of these JavaScript libraries have made their mark in the market since their launch. So to get more details about them and have a look at the major difference between jQuery and React, let’s go through this blog.

1. What is jQuery?

jQuery is a simple and lightweight JavaScript library. Since the emergence of jQuery, it has revolutionized the web development industry and has been wrapping many JavaScript lines into a single line of code. The concept of “write less, do more” is the perfect definition of jQuery. It is a technology that can simplify the complex things that come with JavaScript like DOM elements and AJAX manipulation. This means that jQuery has made it painless to shift from traditional ways of creating web pages to developing dynamic web apps.

Features of jQuery

• Effects and Animation
• HTML/DOM Manipulation
• CSS Manipulation
• HTML event methods
• Utilities
• JSON Parsing
• AJAX

This youtube tutorial will help you to understand what is jQuery

To date, jQuery is the most popular and extendable JavaScript-based library. Big Giants like Microsoft, Google, and IBM are using the jQuery library on the Web. 

2. What is React?

React is a well-known open-source, efficient, declarative, robust and flexible JavaScript library. It was developed by Facebook in the year 2011 and since then its main purpose is to create interactive UI elements. It makes web development easier. Before React came into the market, developers used to create UIs with raw JavaScript or jQuery. And this made the development process slow, but React has changed everything.

React is a library that offers reusable library code which helps in cutting down the user interface development time and also reduces the scope of errors. In addition to this, the React best practices help the developers to create a dynamic web page, large-scale application, or single-page application for the customers. Besides this, React comes with two key features – Virtual DOM and JSX, and they differentiate React from other popular JavaScript libraries or other frameworks. Major companies like TripAdvisor, Airbnb, Facebook, and Instagram are all using React.

Features of React

• Components
• Virtual DOM
• JSX
• One-way Data Binding
• Performance
• Simplicity

3. Comparison Between – jQuery Vs React

Some of the major differences between React and jQuery are –

3.1 Performance

jQuery used traditional DOM and when it comes to updating the traditional DOM, its tree is updated from the root to all the way down. Therefore, the update takes a lot more time than expected and this happens when the applications are large or complex.

On the other hand, React makes use of Virtual DOM. Virtual DOM speeds up the update process and this eventually means that React is better and faster than jQuery.

This discussion from freecodecamp will help one understand this topic better

3.2 Large Size Application

jQuery is a popular utility library that helps developers to wrap different browser APIs. It is not designed to create large applications. This means that when developers use jQuery for large applications, they might face a few issues –

• Traditional DOM updates get slower with time as Large applications contain a very complex DOM tree.
• With jQuery, the developers have to create a “Spaghetti Code” for complex applications. This means that the code of large applications can grow bigger and more complex with time and that eventually becomes harder to maintain.

On the other hand, React is a library that can easily maintain the components. This makes React the best option for developing large-sized applications. Some of the main factors that support this statement are –

• Using virtual DOM makes sure that the update time for DOM is less and this enables the applications to process faster.
• React’s component-oriented structure needs programmers to utilize the recommended methodologies. This makes it very flexible to maintain the code and handle larger applications.

Here is what Asif Hussian, a quora user has to say about using React for larger-scale application building

3.3 Ease of Use

Both jQuery and React are simple, straightforward, and easy-to-use technologies. This means that debating between jQuery and React in terms of usage is very tricky.

If you are creating a simple website, adding some style will be required, so you can use jQuery. It works very well for powering a simple contact form, animating a navigation menu, or a basic trigger event.

But when it comes to creating a web app for a mobile device, it requires various views and sophisticated functionalities. This is where React is a perfect choice. It enables the developers to handle the apps in the perfect way and this is because of its design and mechanism.

3.4 Which one is more Modern

jQuery has helped the web app development world a lot from the late 2000s to the early 2010s. It had made development a much faster and easier process and this is why jQuery became so popular. To date, there are websites that use jQuery and not React. The main reason behind it is that jQuery has been around in the market for much longer.

On the other hand, unlike jQuery, React comes with some latest updates and this makes it more alive in the market. Besides, with React, developers can get many more resources and tools in comparison to jQuery. This makes React more relevant and modern in today’s time.

Here is what Mattias have to say about making use of JQuery in the modern development world

3.5 Third-Party Libraries

Generally, programmers try to avoid reinventing the wheel, and web development might require the developers to deploy some features and functionalities that another practical developer has already done before. For this reason, one of the largest JavaScript libraries’ sources, Node Package Manager (NPM) was released.

As jQuery is older than React, developers can find a higher number of jQuery libraries in the market. But if the developer searches for reservoirs for packages of both React and jQuery, he can see that React has a huge number of NPM packages. This proves that React has more third-party libraries than jQuery.

4. Conclusion

As seen in this blog, both jQuery and React are very popular web development technologies and they enable developers in building user interfaces that can be user-friendly and robust. There is no perfect winner in the debate between jQuery and React. But if you look at the number of job opportunities and longevity in the market, React is the best option available. Still, which library to choose for the business project completely depends on the available resources and tools.