Is it still worth using jQuery in 2025?

Published on 07/07/2025

In the early days of web development jQuery's slogan was "Write less, do more", reflecting how it simplified common web tasks. Fast forward to 2025, and the web platform has evolved dramatically. Modern JavaScript now includes many features that jQuery originally provided, and a host of new frameworks have emerged.

So, a question arises, should web developers prefer jQuery over plain JavaScript in 2025? Let's explore jQuery's history, the advancements in native JS, and real-world scenarios to decide when (if ever) jQuery is the pragmatic choice in 2025.

The rise of jQuery: what it originally solved

jQuery was created by John Resig and released in 2006, at a time when building websites meant fighting with inconsistent browser APIs. Back then, simple tasks like selecting DOM elements or handling events required lots of code and hacks to work across Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc. jQuery introduced a unified, chainable API that made JavaScript fun and productive, abstracting away browser quirks.

What made jQuery so popular? A few key things:

• Simplified DOM manipulation: With a single $() function, developers could select elements using CSS selectors and perform actions in one go. For example, $('#menu li.highlight') finds list items with class "highlight" inside an element with id "menu" - a concise syntax that didn't exist natively at the time. jQuery's selector engine (Sizzle) enabled advanced queries that were otherwise cumbersome or unsupported in 2006
• Cross-browser compatibility: jQuery smoothed over differences between browsers in how they handled events, AJAX, and the DOM. It provided one consistent way to do things and internally did the hard work of dealing with each browser's quirks. Developers no longer had to write separate code paths for IE vs. Firefox - using jQuery meant your code usually "just worked" everywhere.
• Convenience utilities and effects: jQuery added handy methods to manipulate HTML/CSS (.addClass(), .css(), etc.), handle events (.on() for clicks, keypresses, etc.), and perform AJAX requests easily ($.ajax() or shorthand methods like $.getJSON). It even included simple animations (fading, sliding) for feedback and interactive UIs. These high-level tools were much simpler than the verbose native counterparts of the time.
• Plugin ecosystem: Perhaps most importantly, jQuery opened the door to a vast ecosystem of plugins. Need a carousel, date picker, or form validation? Chances are someone wrote a jQuery plugin for it. By the early 2010s, jQuery was virtually a standard dependency - almost every site included it, and a huge community of developers built on top of it.
• Non-standard selectors: jQuery extended CSS with extra pseudo-selectors like :visible, :hidden, :animated, and more. These let you filter elements by run-time state (e.g., visibility) or position with a single call.

In summary, jQuery earned its fame by making web development easier and more accessible. It allowed developers (including beginners) to achieve complex tasks with just a few lines of code, at a time when doing the same “from scratch” was error-prone and time-consuming. It's no exaggeration that jQuery revolutionized front-end development in its heyday.

How modern JavaScript made jQuery less necessary

Today's JavaScript has come a long way. Many features that once required jQuery are now built into the language or browser APIs, often in a more efficient or standardized form. This doesn't mean jQuery isn't useful, but it does mean you may not need it for a lot of tasks that it was originally created to handle. Let's look at some of the improvements in vanilla JS that cover jQuery's core functionality:

• DOM selection and manipulation: Modern browsers support document.querySelectorAll() and document.querySelector(), which allow CSS-style selectors to find elements just like jQuery's $(). You can also easily change element classes with element.classList add / remove / toggle , set styles via element.style, and manipulate attributes/properties directly. These native methods are straightforward and work uniformly across all modern browsers, reducing the need for jQuery's DOM utilities.
• Event handling: Attaching events in vanilla JavaScript is simple and standardized with addEventListener() (supported in every modern browser). In the past, jQuery's event system abstracted away older Internet Explorer's issues and offered convenient event delegation. Now, unless you need to support very old IE versions (I guess in some older ATMs), addEventListener works for clicks, key events, etc., without needing a library. You can even use options like { once: true } for one-time events, which previously might have required a jQuery workaround. In addition, you can even assign callbacks to event handler properties. For example: element.onclick, element.onfocus, etc.
• AJAX and HTTP requests: jQuery's $.ajax() (and convenience methods like $.get() or $.post()) were a huge draw, making XHR requests simpler. Today we have the Fetch API as a modern replacement. fetch() is a built-in promise-based API for HTTP requests that covers the same needs in a clean way. For example, instead of $.getJSON('/api/data', callback), you can fetch('/api/data').then(res => res.json()).then(data => { ... }) - no library needed. With async/await it can even be written in a cleaner way: const response = await fetch('/api/data'); const data = await response.json(); ...
• Animations and effects: jQuery's built-in effects (fades, slides, etc.) were handy in an era before CSS animations. Now, CSS3 transitions and animations, as well as the Web Animations API, let you create smooth animations that often perform better than JavaScript-based ones. For many use cases (hover effects, modals, accordions), pure CSS can handle the visuals.
• Polyfills and browser consistency: Browser standards have improved, and most users are on evergreen (auto-updating) browsers now. In the mid-2000s, you needed jQuery to handle differences like attachEvent vs addEventListener. Today, those differences are largely history - browsers have converged on standards. And for any remaining gaps, developers often use targeted polyfills (small scripts that patch a specific feature) rather than a large library. The result is that the native web platform is far more capable and consistent, diminishing jQuery's original value proposition.
• Performance considerations: Using native APIs can also be better for performance. Although jQuery is relatively small (about 30 KB minified and gzipped), it's still an extra dependency that must be downloaded and parsed. Unlike images (which can load asynchronously), JavaScript files can block page rendering while they load and execute. By relying on built-in features instead of a library, you reduce that overhead. Skipping jQuery can make your pages a bit snappier, especially on mobile devices or slower networks, and it means one less technology for a developer to master.

In summary, modern JavaScript has caught up with jQuery in most areas. The once-magical convenience of $() and friends is now mostly matched by standardized, built-in methods. If you know your way around vanilla JS, you can handle almost any front-end task without jQuery. This leads many developers to forego jQuery for new projects - why include a library when the language itself does the job?

How popular is jQuery in 2025?

Surprisingly, jQuery is still extremely prevalent on the web in 2025, even if it's no longer the hot new thing. According to W3Techs, jQuery is still used on ~74% of the websites in 2025. This is ~90% of the websites that use any known library.

How can this be, when most developers today rarely choose jQuery for a new project? The key is that the web is full of legacy content and sites built over the past decade. jQuery was the default choice for so long that millions of existing sites and templates include it by inertia.

What contributes to jQuery's popularity?

A few factors that contribute to jQuery's ongoing ubiquity:

• Content management systems (CMS) and platforms: Many websites run on platforms like WordPress, which historically include jQuery in their core. In fact, WordPress has shipped jQuery with every install, and many themes and plugins rely on it. This means a huge number of sites have jQuery loaded even if the site owner didn't explicitly add it. Similarly, other older CMSs or site builders might include jQuery for their admin UI or frontend widgets.
• Legacy code and long maintenance cycles: Large enterprises and long-lived websites might still be on tech stacks from years ago. If a site was built in 2013 with jQuery, it may still use jQuery in 2025 because "if it ain't broke don't fix it". Upgrading an old codebase to remove jQuery can be a low priority if everything works. As a result, jQuery sticks around in many production sites that are in maintenance mode.
• Familiarity and momentum: jQuery was taught in countless tutorials and books, and many developers who learned it continue to use it for quick solutions. Even if the wider community has moved on, there's a large base of developers comfortable with jQuery. They might include it out of habit or because it's faster for them to whip up a solution with $(...) than to research a new approach. This effect is fading with new generations of developers (for instance, only ~15% of coding students in 2023 were learning jQuery, whereas much higher percentages focus on React or Node.js). But the installed base of jQuery users is still non-trivial.
• Plugin/library dependencies: A lot of third-party UI widgets and libraries in the past were built as jQuery plugins. While many have been rewritten or replaced, some niche ones still require jQuery. If a project needs one of those and there's no modern alternative readily available, developers might include jQuery just to use that plugin. But this is becoming rarer as time goes on - e.g., even historically jQuery-dependent projects like Bootstrap have dropped jQuery in their latest version in favor of pure JS.

It's important to note that jQuery's popularity in usage stats does not mean it's the top choice for new development. In fact, surveys show a decline in developer usage preference. For example, in Stack Overflow's 2020 developer survey, jQuery was the most used web tech among respondents (used by 43% of developers), but by 2023 it fell to third place with only ~22% of developers using it. This indicates that while jQuery is still running on many sites, fewer devs are actively starting new projects with it. The trend is clear: jQuery's share of websites is slowly shrinking, and newer sites lean toward modern frameworks or just vanilla JS. But given the sheer number of legacy sites and the fact that jQuery isn't broken or deprecated, it will likely remain part of the web landscape for years to come (just in a steady decline).

When you should skip jQuery (and use vanilla JS or a framework)

Modern best practices often lean towards either using the platform (vanilla JS) or choosing a more structured framework for large applications. Here are situations where adding jQuery is likely not the best choice:

• Building a large or complex application: If you're starting a project that is essentially a web application (not just a simple page), jQuery will not scale well as the sole foundation. Apps with lots of interactive state, dynamic updates, and complex UI benefit from frameworks like React, Vue, or Angular, which offer a component-based architecture. jQuery, being imperative, can lead to tangled code as complexity grows. Developers warn that if a project is expected to grow in complexity, it's best to start with a different framework. Using jQuery for a big app can quickly evolve into spaghetti code where it's hard to maintain or even understand which part of code affects what.
• Primarily needing one small feature: Sometimes a project needs just one specific functionality (say, an AJAX call or a simple DOM manipulation). In those cases, adding the entire jQuery library might be overkill. You can likely accomplish the task with a few lines of standard JavaScript or a tiny utility library. For example, if all you need is a network request, using the native fetch() would be much lighter than including jQuery just for that.
• Performance is a top priority: Also noted here, while jQuery isn't huge, every script on a page adds some overhead. If you're optimizing for the fastest load times and smallest bundles (for example, on a critical mobile site), you should think twice about adding dependencies. A millisecond here and a few KB there can add up. If your use of jQuery saves only a tiny bit of coding effort but adds an extra request or blocking script, it may not be worth it in a performance-focused project. Using plain JS ensures you're only shipping the code you actually wrote, with no extra baggage.
• Learning and future-proofing: Also noted here, if you're a new developer or you're building skills for the future, leaning too heavily on jQuery can hold you back. The industry has largely moved to frameworks and standard JS. Knowing jQuery is still useful (there are plenty of jobs maintaining older sites!), but it shouldn't be your only tool. If you have the option, using and learning modern vanilla JS will pay off more in the long run. Similarly, companies hiring for front-end roles today will expect knowledge of React/Vue/etc. and solid ES6+ JavaScript, rather than jQuery. So, from a career perspective, favoring native JS is wise unless your specific job requires jQuery. You can always include jQuery later if needed, but you might not always have time to unlearn jQuery habits in favor of newer paradigms. Think of it this way: jQuery is a bit of a legacy approach now - great for quick wins, but not the foundation you'd build a cutting-edge project on.

Summary

I would not recommend jQuery in 2025 for greenfield projects, but it's not obsolete either. It remains a useful tool in the toolbox, especially for certain scenarios like legacy systems and quick jQuery-centric solutions. The JavaScript language and ecosystem have evolved to offer many choices beyond jQuery, so developers should understand those options. Use jQuery when it makes your life easier and aligns with your project's goals, but don't be afraid to go "vanilla" when you can - you might be pleasantly surprised how far the platform itself has come. The best developers stay flexible: sometimes the old trusty jQuery is the right call, and other times you'll do more by writing less… but without jQuery. Happy coding!