Difference Between JavaScript and jQuery

Last Updated : 28 Jul, 2025

JavaScript is a programming language used for web development, while jQuery is a library written in JavaScript, simplifying tasks like DOM manipulation, event handling, and AJAX requests, making JavaScript code more concise and readable.

JavaScript

JavaScript is a crucial scripting language for enhancing website interactivity and responsiveness. It complements HTML and CSS, adding dynamism to web pages. Besides web development, JavaScript powers desktop/server programs (e.g., Node.js) and certain databases like MongoDB and CouchDB.

Example: This example uses the Javascript loop concept to print the numbers.

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">

<head>
    <title>
        Difference Between JavaScript and jQuery
    </title>
</head>

<body>
    <p>A loop with a
        <mark>continue</mark> statement.
    </p>
    <p>
        loop will skip the iteration where k = 7.
    </p>
    <p id="maddy"></p>
    <script>
        let text = "";
        let k;
        for (k = 0; k < 10; k++) {
            if (k === 7) {
                continue;
            }
            text += "The number is " + k + "<br>";
        }
        document.getElementById("maddy").innerHTML = text;
    </script>
</body>

</html>

Output:

jQuery

JQuery is a framework for JavaScript developed from JavaScript. It is the most popular JavaScript library invented by John Resign and was released in January 2006 at BarCamp NYC. It is a free, open-source library and It's a fast, concise, and rich-featured JavaScript library and also has cross-browser compatibility. The purpose of jQuery is to make life easier for the masses so that they can easily develop websites and browser-based applications using JavaScript. In a concise manner, we can say that "JQuery is a library to provide better client-side web page development" environment to the developer with the help of its feature-rich library.

DOM manipulation: DOM elements can be easily traversed, and forbrowser's modified.
Animations Lots of built-in features for animations.
HTML event handling and manipulation.
Ajax is much simpler with an easy-to-use API that works across a multitude of browsers.
CSS manipulation
Has a high-level UI widget library.
Cross-browser support: work well on browsers like Chrome, Opera, etc.
Lightweight: Only 19kb in size.
And other common utilities

Example: This example uses the show() method & hide() method to toggle the element to display.

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <title>
        Difference Between JavaScript and jQuery
    </title>
    <script src=
"https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.5.1/jquery.min.js">
    </script>
</head>

<body>
    <script>
        $(document).ready(function () {
            $("#hide").click(function () {
                $("h1").hide();
            });
            $("#show").click(function () {
                $("h1").show();
            });
        });
    </script>
    <h1>
        <mark>
            On clicking the "Hide_me" button, I will disappear.
        </mark>
    </h1>
    <button id="hide">Hide_me</button>
    <button id="show">Show_me</button>
</body>
</html>

Output: As we click on the Hide_me button, the above-marked heading will disappear, but as soon as we click on the Show_me button it'll again appear.

Key differences between JavaScript and JQuery are as follows

JavaScript	jQuery
JavaScript uses JIT[Just in Time Compiler] which is a combination of interpreter and Compile and is written in C. It's a combination of ECMA script and DOM (Document Object Model).	While JQuery Uses the resources that are provided by JavaScript to make things easier. It is a lightweight JavaScript library. It has only the DOM.
JavaScript uses long lines of code as an individual has to write the code own-self.	With JQuery, one has to write fewer lines of code than JavaScript. We just need to import the library and use the only specific functions or methods of the library in our code.
In JavaScript, we have to write extra code or move around to have cross-browser compatibility.	JQuery has an inbuilt feature of cross-browser compatibility. We don’t need to worry about writing extra lines of code or moving around in order to make our code compatible with any browser.
JavaScript can be a burden over a developer as it may take a number of lines of lengthy code to attain functionality.	Unlike JavaScript, JQuery is more user-friendly only a few lines of code have to write in order to have its functionality.
JavaScript is verbose because one has to write their own scripting code which is time-consuming.	JQuery is concise and one need not write much as scripting already exists.
Pure JavaScript can be faster for DOM selection/manipulation than jQuery as JavaScript is directly processed by the browser and it curtails the overhead which JQuery actually has.	JQuery is also fast with modern browsers and modern computers. JQuery has to be converted into JavaScript to make it run in a browser.
We can make animations in JavaScript with many lines of code. Animations are mainly done by manipulating the style of an Html page.	In JQuery, we can add animation effects easily with fewer lines of code.
JavaScript is a language, obviously, it would be heavier than JQuery.	While JQuery is a library, derived from JavaScript hence, it is lightweight.
JavaScript is an independent language and can exist on its own.	JQuery is a JavaScript library. It would not have been invented had JavaScript was not there. jQuery is still dependent on JavaScript as it has to be converted to JavaScript for the browser in-built JavaScript engine to interpret and run it.
Brendan Eich created JavaScript at Netscape.	jQuery is created by John Resig.
JavaScript is a programming language.	jQuery is an Application Programming Interface (API).
There are no special symbols to define JavaScript like JQuery.	There are special symbols to define JQuery.
The disadvantage of JavaScript is that it is not easy to use it.	The advantage of JQuery is the ease in which one can use JQuery.

Advantages of JavaScript

JavaScript boosts up the execution of a program and saves the time required for connecting to the server.
It provides numerous interfaces to developers for creating catchy web pages.
It is capable of back-end as well as front-end development.
The structure of JavaScript is simple for the users as well as the developers.

Disadvantages of JavaScript

It runs the risk of lower security.
It takes a longer time to load if too much JavaScript content is added to the website.
As it is a client-side language, There may be slight differences in the performance depending on the browsers.
Disabling JavaScript can hinder a web page.

Advantages of jQuery:

jQuery is immensely flexible as it permits users to add plugins.
It has inbuilt UI and effects libraries.
It can perform complicated JavaScript operations in very less code.
It is free, supported well across different applications, and also provides very efficient and fast solutions to problems.

Disadvantages of jQuery

Functionality is limited.
The library is quite huge to download.
It have issues in working with certain browsers.

jQuery is an open-source JavaScript library that simplifies the interactions between an HTML/CSS document, It is widely famous for its philosophy of “Write less, do more". Please refer to the jQuery Tutorial and jQuery Examples articles for further details.

Introduction to JavaScript

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Article Tags :

Difference Between JavaScript and jQuery

JavaScript

jQuery

Key differences between JavaScript and JQuery are as follows

JavaScript

jQuery

Advantages of JavaScript

Disadvantages of JavaScript

Disadvantages of jQuery

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