jQuery at 20: The $ Symbol That Saved Frontend and Still Powers 66% of the Web

The Pre-jQuery Era: A Fragmented Browser Landscape

In the early 2000s, frontend development was plagued by severe cross-browser inconsistencies. Microsoft's Internet Explorer (especially IE6) and Netscape/Firefox implemented DOM APIs and event models differently, forcing developers to write verbose conditional code like if (IE页面) to handle basic tasks. A simple dropdown menu could require hundreds of lines of JavaScript, and document.getElementById was ubiquitous but unreliable across browsers.

John Resig and the Birth of jQuery

At BarCampNYC in January 2006, John Resig declared:

"Writing JavaScript should be fun."

On August 26, 2006, jQuery 1.0 was released. Its core innovation was wrapping complex DOM manipulation, animation, and cross-browser compatibility into a single, CSS-selector-based function: $(). For example, a cross-browser Ajax request that once required dozens of lines became: $.get('/api/data', function(data){ ... }); The motto "Write less, do more" captured its revolutionary reduction of boilerplate.

Democratizing Web Development

jQuery dramatically lowered the entry barrier. Designers, backend developers, and hobbyists could build interactive pages in days. A vast plugin ecosystem emerged — lightboxes, carousels, date pickers — providing ready-made solutions. As one developer wrote on its 10th anniversary:

"jQuery saved JavaScript! It is the lifeblood of all developers."

Hacker News users later reflected that jQuery gave the global JavaScript community a unified language and foundation without which later frontend prosperity would not have been possible.

Shift to Declarative Frameworks and Native APIs

In the 2010s, React, Angular, and Vue introduced declarative, data-driven programming, contrasting with jQuery's imperative style:

jQuery (imperative): "Find this element, change its color, find that button, add a class..."

Modern frameworks (declarative): "Here is my state; the UI updates automatically when data changes."

Simultaneously, browsers adopted native APIs inspired by jQuery: querySelectorAll, classList, and fetch. The site "You Might Not Need jQuery" gained traction, and "still writing jQuery" became a mild pejorative.

Persistent Dominance: 66% of the Web

Despite the narrative of obsolescence, W3Techs data shows over 66% of all websites still run jQuery as of 2026.

Major platforms — WordPress, Drupal, Bootstrap — depend on jQuery at their core. It remains the hidden bedrock of the modern web.

Community Reevaluation

Recent discourse has shifted from dismissal to appreciation. Docker's technical blog and Alex MacArthur's article "Stop Treating Hating jQuery as a Trend" argue that today's elegant APIs, responsive design, and thriving frontend ecosystem stand on the foundation jQuery built.

Current Status and Legacy

Now maintained by the OpenJS Foundation under the MIT license, jQuery continues to receive updates (jQuery 4.0 released in 2024). Resig's 2006 vision — making JavaScript fun — has been realized. jQuery may no longer be the first choice for new projects, but its 20-year legacy is a testament to how lowering technical barriers unleashes human creativity.