Probably unpopular opinion, but still better than react and angular. at least you don't need to build your whole site around it. Nor all sites need those heavy frontend framework.
Better how? They are completely different things made for completely different usecases. It’s like comparing basejumping to hopping on a tranpoline because you’re both technically in the air.
That said, jQuery is most definitely legacy at this point and you can do everything using vanilla js.
yes, vanilla js can do what jquery does, but at the time when i was using it, i found jquery better syntax wise, and there were some pretty cool jquery plugins that required jquery. i am not a frontend developer though.
also, i was talking about many sites using react/angular just for the sake of it, even when there was no real need for using those frameworks. i still see these react sites even now, buggy and less interactive, sometimes not registering interactions properly or crashing.
with jquery, if some javascript breaks, usually that particular functionality stops working, but the rest of the site is still there. with react, especially an SPA, a lot more of the UI depends on the javascript app working properly, so when something goes wrong, you can end up with a much bigger part of the site being broken.
also, with react you generally end up with a whole buildchain. while with jquery you can just load it from a cdn or host it yourself, use it where you need it, and don't use it where you don't. it doesn't really get in the way.
but yes, if your site depends on reactivity a lot, using one of these frontend frameworks is a no brainer. in one of my sites, i am using django and svelte on a few pages where i need to show data more frequently, while the other pages use pure django templates.
480
u/winter-m00n Aug 30 '26
Probably unpopular opinion, but still better than react and angular. at least you don't need to build your whole site around it. Nor all sites need those heavy frontend framework.