jQuery vs Vanilla JS

Journal

The jQuery JavaScript library is commonly used in modern web development, empowering designers & developers to write JavaScript more easily, taking care of cross-browser JavaScript polyfills and simplifying tasks such as AJAX requests.

The jQuery JavaScript library is commonly used in modern web development, empowering designers & developers to write JavaScript more easily, taking care of cross-browser JavaScript polyfills and simplifying tasks such as AJAX requests.

Vanilla JS is a term being used to describe developing code in native Javascript, without the support of a library such as jQuery, which may result in a smaller code base and improved script performance in the browser.

Visiting the tongue-in-cheek website Vanilla JS, you can see some of the speed comparisons between writing code in jQuery vs Vanilla JS.

Further reading:

  • Can I Use? provides up-to-date browser support tables for support of front-end web technologies on desktop and mobile web browsers.
  • Mozilla JavaScript reference serves as a repository of facts about the JavaScript language.