Category: 3. History

Today, jQuery is no longer the leader in web development, but it has not disappeared. It still powers millions of legacy websites and remains deeply integrated into platforms like WordPress and Joomla. Many older projects still depend on it, and countless plugins continue to exist in the ecosystem.

However, for new large-scale applications, developers usually prefer frameworks like React, Vue, or Angular. jQuery is now seen as a library best suited for small projects, quick prototypes, or maintaining older systems.

After 2015, the web world started to change. Modern JavaScript frameworks like Angular, React, and Vue.js became popular. These new tools offered features like component-based architecture, better performance, and scalability for large applications — something jQuery was never designed for.

At the same time, browsers improved their native JavaScript APIs. Functions like querySelector, fetch, and modern event handling became standard, making many of jQuery’s advantages unnecessary.

As a result, new projects gradually moved away from jQuery in favor of these modern solutions.

Between 2012 and 2015, jQuery was at its peak. According to studies, by 2015, more than 70% of the top websites in the world were using it. For many developers, jQuery wasn’t just an option — it was the default way to build interactive and responsive websites.

Alongside the main library, developers created jQuery UI, which offered ready-to-use widgets like sliders, datepickers, tabs, and dialogs. At the same time, a huge plugin ecosystem emerged. Thousands of free plugins appeared for things like image sliders, form validation, popups, and interactive galleries.

This made web development even easier because instead of building everything from scratch, developers could plug in existing solutions.

This was the period when jQuery became the most widely used JavaScript library in the world. The turning point came when WordPress, the most popular content management system, started including jQuery in its default installation. That meant millions of websites automatically loaded it.

Other CMS platforms like Joomla and Drupal followed, making jQuery almost unavoidable in web development. By 2010, if you visited a modern website, there was a very high chance it was powered by jQuery.

As soon as it was introduced, developers started noticing the value of jQuery. Its short syntax and easy methods made tasks like selecting elements, handling events, and adding animations much faster compared to plain JavaScript.

By 2007, adoption was spreading quickly. Developers realized they could save hours of work and avoid browser headaches simply by including jQuery in their projects.

jQuery was created by John Resig and released in January 2006 at the BarCamp NYC conference. At that time, JavaScript was powerful but messy, mainly because different browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera) interpreted it in their own ways. Developers often had to write separate code for each browser to make sure their websites worked properly.

John Resig built jQuery to solve this problem. His goal was to create a lightweight JavaScript library that simplified coding and made it possible to write cross-browser compatible scripts with ease.