jQuery vs JavaScript: Difference Between jQuery and JavaScript

Most people ask, “What’s the difference between jQuery vs JavaScript?” The short and precise answer is that JavaScript is a programming language for designing and developing websites and web applications. In contrast, jQuery is a JavaScript (JS) library that simplifies web development by allowing you to write less code and achieve more effective JS code.             

In today’s fast-paced digital world, most websites and web apps are dynamic. Developers are now building products with innovative features and functions, rather than just displaying static content. To ensure the performance and build quality of these applications, both JavaScript and jQuery are used as the primary tools.

Although they are related, the purpose behind their implementation differs, and this blog will focus on that. So, without any further delay, let’s get started.

What is JavaScript?

JavaScript (JS) is a high-level, flexible programming language primarily used for crafting dynamic and user-friendly websites. JS is supported across all browsers and servers, allowing developers to define the behavior of specific user interface (UI) components or the entire webpage.

Alongside HTML and CSS, JS is a core web development tool that performs various tasks such as validating forms, creating animations, or establishing a communication path between the client system and the server.

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Advantages

• JS runs natively and seamlessly across all modern browsers, so no additional libraries are required.     

• It helps add dynamic features and functionalities to your websites and web apps.    

• JS can handle client-side rendering (CSR) and server-side rendering (SSR) tasks.

Features

• Dynamic & Versatile: JavaScript runs on both the browser and server, allowing developers to create interactive and full-featured applications.
  
• Event Handling: It can respond to user actions like clicks, form inputs, and keyboard events, making web pages interactive.
  
• Rich Functionality: Supports objects, functions, arrays, and complex logic, enabling developers to build sophisticated web applications.

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What is jQuery?

jQuery is a rich JS-based library that streamlines multiple programming activities such as modifying HTML elements, handling user events, and managing Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). This particular technology is built on top of JS. It provides simple yet effective code shortcuts that eventually minimize the overall development time and enhance the consistency of applications across different browsers.

Behind the creation of jQuery, there was only one goal: to make the JavaScript language easier to write, faster to execute, and more accessible for programmers. As a result, most of the time and effort can be invested in developing websites instead of getting stuck in browser quirks.

Advantages

• jQuery simplifies and reduces JavaScript code, helping to make development quicker.    

• A wide range of plugins is available to enhance the functionality within the application.             

• It is an effective JS library that automatically handles the cross-browser inconsistencies and ensures a consistent user experience (UX).

Features

• Simplified DOM Manipulation: jQuery makes selecting, modifying, and traversing HTML elements much easier and faster than plain JavaScript.
  
• Cross-Browser Compatibility: It abstracts browser differences, ensuring your code works consistently across all major browsers.
  
• Animations & Effects: jQuery allows adding smooth animations, transitions, and interactive UI effects with minimal code.

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Key Differences Between jQuery vs JavaScript

Some of the significant differences between these two technologies are as follows:

1. Ease of Use

JavaScript:

JavaScript is a versatile and effective programming language for building software projects, but performing simple tasks can be overwhelming for beginners. For example, to change the background color of multiple cards on a webpage, you must first use selectors and then operate on them.

(Code)

{

const cards = document.querySelectorAll(“.card”);

cards.forEach(card => card.style.backgroundColor = “blue”);

}

jQuery:

In jQuery, performing the same task becomes extremely simple. In fact, this library is designed to make JS tasks simpler and more intuitive, minimizing overall development time and making the code more readable and easier to maintain.

(Code)

{

$(“.box”).css(“background-color”, “blue”);

}

2. DOM Manipulation

JavaScript:

Developers can easily manipulate the DOM (Document Object Model) tree with the help of JS, as it allows them to gain complete control over every element, attribute, and property. But when building scalable applications, multiple manipulations are involved, resulting in the code becoming longer. For instance, you have to create and append elements explicitly. 

As you can see here, to add a new item to the list, you first need to create a list element, set its textContent, and then append it to the parent list element.

(Code)

{

const ul = document.getElementById(“list”);

const li = document.createElement(“li”);

li.textContent = “New Item”;

ul.appendChild(li);

}

jQuery:

jQuery performs DOM manipulation with minimal code lines, which helps developers save time and effort by writing concise scripts. For the same DOM manipulation of adding a list item, you can now append new elements and modify the content simultaneously without extra boilerplate code. Due to this feature, it also becomes an ideal choice when dealing with multiple dynamic web page contents.

(Code)

{

$(“#list”).append(“<li>New Item</li>”);

}

3. Event Handling

JavaScript:

There are different user events, such as clicks, hovers, form submissions, and page reloads. JavaScript is a language that handles these events exceptionally by setting up the required event listeners for each element and linking them to separate methods for each action to be executed. 

For example, to display an alert message when a button is clicked, you must attach the particular DOM element with the event listener (in this case, the addEventListener method captures the click event).

(Code)

{

document.getElementById(“btn”).addEventListener(“click”, function() {

  alert(“Button clicked!”);

});

}

jQuery:

In jQuery, we execute the same code using built-in functions (like click() or on()), which listen to user events. This approach makes the code cleaner and readable.

(Code)

{

$(“#btn”).click(function() {

  alert(“Button clicked!”);

});

}

4. AJAX Support

JavaScript:

To perform asynchronous operations, JavaScript uses the fetch() API or XMLHttpRequest, allowing developers to fetch data, update the user interface (UI), or send it to the server without blocking the main thread of the program’s execution.

(Code)

{

fetch(“https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users“)

  .then(response => response.json())

  .then(data => console.log(data))

  .catch(err => console.error(err));

}

jQuery:

jQuery, on the other hand, makes the AJAX requests more concise and simple. For example, here we have used the .ajax( ) method with the pre-built callback functions to display the success and error information. For dynamically loading content based on user interactions or conditions, using jQuery can be an optimal choice.

(Code)

{

$.ajax({

  url: “https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users“,

  method: “GET”,

  success: function(data) { console.log(data); },

  error: function(err) { console.error(err); }

});

}

5. Cross-Browser Compatibility

JavaScript:

JavaScript works effectively across all modern browsers, but it can behave differently in some older browsers. This requires developers to add plugins, validations, or optimization techniques to ensure consistency for websites and applications. 

These additional activities often increase the overall development time and complexity, especially when the core purpose is to cover multiple browser versions.

jQuery:

jQuery, in contrast, automatically manages most of the browser inconsistencies. JS tasks such as DOM manipulation and AJAX calls can be written in jQuery, and they can behave consistently across all major browsers without any additional effort.

6. Performance

JavaScript:

Pure JavaScript is faster to execute as it doesn’t depend on external third-party libraries or tools. Implementing direct DOM manipulations, pure conditional statements or loops, and AJAX calls can enhance the speed and performance of your application, especially when crafting enterprise-grade applications.

jQuery:

As jQuery is an external JS library that usually wraps the JS functions or methods, it creates overhead. These overheads impact the performance of large websites and applications, sometimes degrading pages with a considerable amount of dynamic content.

7. Library Dependency

JavaScript:

All modern browsers support JavaScript, so executing it cross-platform is not challenging. Developers can write JS code and run it anywhere without being anxious about adding extra modules.

jQuery:

To include jQuery in your project, you need to integrate it via <script> tags, which you can obtain from CDN (Content Delivery Network) links or by installing it on your local system. Adding this library creates a small dependency module and improves the page rendering speed, making it a perfect solution for performance-based apps.

8. Modern Relevance

JavaScript:

As the technological landscape evolves, the methods of developing websites are also changing accordingly. Over the years, JavaScript has been acting as the backbone of many frameworks and libraries, including Node.js, React, Vue, Angular, Express.js, and many others. 

These modern tools all provide all the features and functionalities that jQuery offers, in fact, with better scalability and performance capabilities. Methods such as querySelectorAll, fetch(), classList, and async/await make pure JavaScript one of the best tools to develop top-notch websites.

jQuery:

jQuery is gradually losing its popularity among developers because of the rise of frameworks and other modern JS-based libraries. However, for developing quick projects and legacy websites, it is still used. 

But when it comes to designing and developing modern web applications, developers increasingly prefer plain vanilla JS or other frameworks rather than relying on jQuery.

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Conclusion

JavaScript forms the backbone of modern web development, providing the core functionality and flexibility needed to build robust applications. jQuery, designed to simplify tasks like DOM manipulation and event handling, remains a valuable tool for developers looking for faster, more efficient solutions in certain projects or legacy systems. By mastering JavaScript first, developers can leverage jQuery as a smart, time-saving addition to their toolkit whenever needed.

FAQs

Is jQuery still used in modern web development?

Yes, jQuery is still used in older and smaller projects, but most modern apps now rely on pure JavaScript or frameworks like React and Vue.

Do I need to learn jQuery if I already know JavaScript?

Not necessarily, but it helps maintain older projects or when you need quick, simple solutions.

Which is faster — JavaScript or jQuery?

JavaScript is faster since it runs natively, while jQuery has a slight overhead as it’s a library built on top of JavaScript.