Why do we use jQuery over JavaScript?

jQuery is a JavaScript library, so it operates on top of JavaScript. It cannot exist on its own, so you can't use one over the other. You can use just JavaScript or JavaScript and jQuery. jQuery was introduced to make development with JavaScript easier. It will reduce the development time. Use it to add animation and event handling on your website.

jQuery simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development. jQuery is easier to use compared to JavaScript and its other JavaScript libraries. You need to write fewer lines of code while using jQuery, in comparison with JavaScript.

Key Advantages of Using jQuery

The main benefits of jQuery over vanilla JavaScript include ?

• Simplified syntax: Less code required for common tasks
• Cross-browser compatibility: jQuery handles browser differences automatically
• Built-in animations: Easy-to-use animation methods
• DOM manipulation: Simplified element selection and modification

Code Comparison Example

Let us see the following code snippet as an example of jQuery and JavaScript to change the background color ?

JavaScript

function changeColor(color) {
   document.body.style.background = color;
}

window.onload = function() {
   changeColor('blue');
};

jQuery

$(document).ready(function() {
   $('body').css('background', '#0000FF');
});

The output of both code snippets is ?

Background color of the webpage changes to blue

As shown above, both the code snippets are doing the same work of changing the background color. But jQuery takes less code and in this way you can work around other examples, which shows that jQuery minimizes the code and is easier to use.

Conclusion

jQuery provides a more concise and readable way to write JavaScript code, making web development faster and more efficient. While it adds an additional library dependency, the benefits of reduced code complexity and improved cross-browser compatibility often outweigh this consideration.