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Preact vs jQuery: What are the differences?
Introduction
Preact and jQuery are two popular JavaScript libraries used for front-end development. Preact is a lightweight alternative to React, while jQuery is known for simplifying HTML document traversal and manipulation, event handling, and animation.
- Virtual DOM: Preact uses a virtual DOM similar to React, where changes are batched and applied efficiently to the real DOM. In contrast, jQuery directly manipulates the DOM, which can sometimes lead to performance issues when dealing with complex applications.
- Component-based Architecture: Preact follows a component-based architecture similar to React, making it easier to create reusable and modular components. On the other hand, jQuery does not have a built-in component system, which can result in less organized and maintainable code.
- Size: Preact is significantly smaller in size compared to jQuery, making it a more lightweight option for projects where file size is a concern. This can lead to faster load times and improved performance in Preact-based applications.
- Syntax: Preact uses a JSX syntax similar to React, allowing developers to write components in a more declarative and intuitive way. In contrast, jQuery relies on manipulating HTML elements using a combination of selectors and method calls, which can be less structured and readable.
- Data Binding: Preact provides better support for data binding through its unidirectional data flow, which helps in maintaining a clear and predictable state management. While jQuery also offers data manipulation functionalities, it may require additional plugins or custom solutions for efficient data binding.
- Community and Ecosystem: Preact has a growing community and ecosystem, leveraging the features and tooling of React. jQuery, on the other hand, has been around for a longer time and has a vast library of plugins and resources available. However, the trend is shifting towards modern frameworks like Preact with more robust community support.
In Summary, Preact distinguishes itself from jQuery by its virtual DOM implementation, component-based architecture, smaller size, JSX syntax, data binding capabilities, and growing community support.
I have made an extended effort to drop frameworks completely if they are not actually needed. While I still use JS Frameworks like Vue, Angular and React ( if I have too ), I see far too often devs / teams deciding to build a single page site entirely in a framework, rather than just using HTML, CSS and a little JS.
I personally feel it's important to know when a framework is a good solution, and maybe when it's overkill.
The project is a web gadget previously made using vanilla script and JQuery, It is a part of the "Quicktext" platform and offers an in-app live & customizable messaging widget. We made that remake with React eco-system and Typescript and we're so far happy with results. We gained tons of TS features, React scaling & re-usabilities capabilities and much more!
What do you think?
I've an eCommerce platform building using Laravel, MySQL and jQuery. It's working good and if anyone become interested, I just deploy the entire source cod e in environment / Hosting. This is not a good model of course. Because everyone ask for small or large amount of change and I had to do this. Imagine when there will be 100 separate deploy and I had to manage 100 separate source. So How do I make my system architecture so that I'll have a core / base source code. To make any any change / update on specific deployment, it will be theme / plugin / extension based . Also if I introduce an API layer then I could handle the Web, Mobile App and POS as well ? Is the API should be part of source code or a individual single API and all the deployment will use that API ?
When I started TipMe, I thought about using React frontend. At the end, plain, simple jQuery won.
I had to build this iteration of the site fast and by using jQuery I could keep using Django as a full stack development tool. One important point is Django form (combined with Django Bootstrap3) means that I don't have to reinvent form rendering again, which will be the case with React.
Over time, more interactivity seeped into the site and React components start making its way into the codebase.
I now wish the site is built using React so that I could add more user friendly interfaces easier (no more fuddling with server states) but I would still say jQuery helped me get past those early days.
Preact offers an API which is extremely similar to React's for less than 10% of its size (and createElement
is renamed to h
, which makes the overall bundle a lot smaller). Although it is less compatible with other libraries than the latter (and its ecosystem is nowhere as developed), this is generally not a problem as Preact exposes the preact/compat
API, which can be used as an alias both for React and ReactDOM and allows for the use of libraries which would otherwise just be compatible with React.
Pros of jQuery
- Cross-browser1.3K
- Dom manipulation957
- Power809
- Open source660
- Plugins610
- Easy459
- Popular395
- Feature-rich350
- Html5281
- Light weight227
- Simple93
- Great community84
- CSS3 Compliant79
- Mobile friendly69
- Fast67
- Intuitive43
- Swiss Army knife for webdev42
- Huge Community35
- Easy to learn11
- Clean code4
- Because of Ajax request :)3
- Powerful2
- Nice2
- Just awesome2
- Used everywhere2
- Improves productivity1
- Javascript1
- Easy Setup1
- Open Source, Simple, Easy Setup1
- It Just Works1
- Industry acceptance1
- Allows great manipulation of HTML and CSS1
- Widely Used1
- I love jQuery1
Pros of Preact
- Lightweight15
- Drop-in replacement for React5
- Performance4
- Props/state passed to render3
- ES6 class components1
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Cons of jQuery
- Large size6
- Sometimes inconsistent API5
- Encourages DOM as primary data source5
- Live events is overly complex feature2