Comparing Frontend Technologies: jQuery vs ReactJS Explained

Frontend development is one of the most important aspects of any web technology, especially one that is built for people as it is what users interact with on your website or web app before anything else, thus giving the first impression about your website or web app and as the saying goes “first impressions matter”. Frontend technologies on the other hand refer to any form of innovation, tools, devices, etc., used in building for frontend. Among frontend technologies jQuery and ReactJS stand as some of the most used by developers and engineers, and with this in mind, we will look at the differences between jQuery and React-JS.

jQuery and React-JS

React-JS and jQuery are popular JavaScript libraries used in front-end development. Although React-JS is the recent favorite of developers and companies and even used by HNG trainees, both of them are capable of building web applications, dynamic web pages, UI components and web widgets, AJAX and API integration, etc. The list of what they can do, and build is long, but one is preferred in certain kinds of tasks than the other and vice versa

jQuery

As a library jQuery is all about doing more with less, it maximizes the ability of the website to do more by embedding lines of repetitive code into methods that can be called and recalled when needed, thus making it easier for developers to build with. jQuery uses selector engines (tools and libraries that parse and evaluate selectors) to select DOM (Document Object Model) elements, jQuery also provides methods to manipulate the already selected DOM elements, such as .html(), .text(), .val(), and more. The already selected DOM element is manipulated by adding event listeners to it, these event listeners check for whenever an action is made on your page, such as clicking on a button, submitting a form, even hovering on an element can be listened to by the event listeners. These event listeners are then used to modify an element when an event happens on your web page, it is used to add things like effects and animations and other things that can improve the user's experience on the website.

All of that is possible because of jQuery’s ability to combine the use of DOM and CSS Manipulation, event handling, animations and effects, and AJAX to provide a seamless experience on the website.

React-JS

On the other hand, React-JS is mostly used in building SPA’s (Single Page Applications) and web applications, and it. React-JS components are written as functions or classes that then return JSX which are HTML-like code that is then translated to JavaScript Elements which are called “React Elements”.

React makes use of a lightweight in-memory representation of the DOM (Document Object Model) known as the Virtual DOM (VDOM). The virtual DOM is a JavaScript object that mirrors the real DOM, except it only exists in memory. State changes in the application are updated only in the virtual DOM instead of the DOM.

The virtual DOM is also compared to the real DOM to determine what changes to be applied and the real DOM is updated with the minimum necessary changes which reduces the number of times the real DOM has to be modified during a session; this process is known as “Diffing” in React-js.

React is mostly used for SPA’s and web applications because its component-based structure makes it easy to build reusable UI components, which are ideal for SPA’s and web apps, and the virtual DOM optimizes the performance by only updating parts of the UI that change.

Difference between jQuery and ReactJS

Although jQuery and ReactJS are used in building web applications, they operate differently compared to each other and focus on different tools in the building process and that is why one is best used for one thing even though the other is also capable of doing the same thing and vice versa.

Here are four major differences between jQuery and ReactJS.

1. Purpose: jQuery’s focus on DOM manipulation and event handling makes it best for dynamic DOM manipulation. ReactJS’ focus on reusable UI components on the hand makes it best for managing state changes.

2. Approach: jQuery is imperative; It uses methods and functions to directly manipulate the DOM. ReactJS is Declarative; It uses components to describe what should be rendered.

3. DOM Handling: as mentioned before jQuery directly uses the DOM to change or modify elements. ReactJS on the other hand makes use of virtual DOM, which leaves the real DOM as is and only manipulates the VDOM.

4. State Management: jQuery has built-in state management. ReactJS on the other hand has built-in state management and different methods.

ReactJS and jQuery are both wonderful front-end technologies that when used right can make your web applications run seamlessly, and which to use for any web project will depend on what you are building, and if you are a newbie looking for where to learn and most especially practice your skills as a frontend developer, I'd recommend no other place than HNG internship