What Is jQuery?

jQuery is an open-source JavaScript library. It was designed to make common web development tasks easier: handling events in HTML documents, creating animations, exchanging data with AJAX and working with the DOM (Document Object Model).

Its main goal was to solve browser compatibility problems and to give developers a simpler, more effective way to build web applications. It made DOM manipulation especially approachable for developers without much JavaScript experience.

jQuery lets you reach DOM elements with CSS selectors, simplifies listening and reacting to events, and makes AJAX requests easy. Shorter, simpler code speeds up development. With the progress of modern JavaScript and browsers, however, the need for jQuery has decreased, and in many cases plain JavaScript is now the better choice.