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ReactiveX VS jQuery

Compare ReactiveX VS jQuery and see what are their differences

ReactiveX logo ReactiveX

ReactiveX is a library for composing asynchronous and event-based programs by using observable sequences.

jQuery logo jQuery

The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library.
  • ReactiveX Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-05-05
  • jQuery Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-22

ReactiveX features and specs

  • Asynchronous Programming
    ReactiveX simplifies asynchronous programming by providing a consistent API for handling sequences of events or data streams. This can lead to cleaner and more maintainable code.
  • Composability
    With ReactiveX, you can easily compose multiple operations on streams using operators, leading to expressive and declarative code. This helps in building complex data pipelines with ease.
  • Error Handling
    ReactiveX provides robust mechanisms for error handling in asynchronous flows, making it easier to build resilient applications that can gracefully handle failures.
  • Backpressure Handling
    ReactiveX offers built-in support for backpressure, enabling systems to handle varying rates of data production and consumption efficiently.
  • Language Support
    ReactiveX is available across multiple programming languages, including Java, JavaScript, Python, Swift, and more, making it a versatile choice for developers working in different ecosystems.
  • Community and Documentation
    ReactiveX has a strong community and extensive documentation, providing ample resources for learning and troubleshooting.

Possible disadvantages of ReactiveX

  • Learning Curve
    ReactiveX introduces a new paradigm for those unfamiliar with reactive programming, and the extensive set of operators can be overwhelming for beginners.
  • Performance Overhead
    The abstraction provided by ReactiveX can introduce performance overhead compared to lower-level approaches, which may be a concern for performance-critical applications.
  • Complexity in Debugging
    Debugging reactive streams can be challenging because of the asynchronous and declarative nature of the code, making it harder to trace issues.
  • Overuse
    There is a risk of overusing ReactiveX for scenarios where it might not be the best fit, leading to unnecessary complexity in simpler contexts.
  • Integration with Legacy Code
    Integrating ReactiveX with legacy codebases that are not designed around reactive principles can be cumbersome and may require significant refactoring.

jQuery features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    jQuery simplifies complex JavaScript tasks by providing easy-to-use methods, which can lead to shorter development times and cleaner code.
  • Cross-Browser Compatibility
    jQuery handles many browser inconsistencies, ensuring that your code works seamlessly across different browsers without additional effort.
  • Large Community and Ecosystem
    There is a vast community of developers who contribute plugins, extensions, and provide support, making it easier to find solutions and enhance functionality.
  • Animation and Effects
    jQuery offers built-in methods for creating animations and effects, allowing developers to enhance the user interface with minimal code.
  • AJAX Simplification
    The library provides straightforward methods for making AJAX calls, which simplifies the process of loading data asynchronously.
  • Documentation and Learning Resources
    Extensive documentation and a plethora of tutorials are available, making it easier for developers to learn and troubleshoot.

Possible disadvantages of jQuery

  • Performance Overhead
    Using jQuery can add overhead to your application due to its file size and additional abstraction, which can impact performance, especially in resource-constrained environments.
  • Relevance
    With the advent of modern JavaScript frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular, and the improvements in native JavaScript (ES6+), the need for jQuery has decreased, making it less relevant in contemporary web development.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While basic usage is straightforward, mastering more advanced topics and optimizing performance can be challenging for newcomers.
  • Potential for Overuse
    Developers might rely too heavily on jQuery for tasks that can be efficiently handled by native JavaScript, leading to bloated codebases.
  • Maintenance and Legacy Code
    Projects heavily reliant on jQuery may face maintenance challenges as modern frameworks and practices evolve, requiring significant refactoring effort if transitioning away from jQuery.
  • Security
    Older jQuery versions have known security vulnerabilities, and continuing to use outdated versions can pose security risks. Regular updates are necessary to mitigate this issue.

Analysis of ReactiveX

Overall verdict

  • ReactiveX is widely regarded as a valuable tool for developers looking to leverage reactive programming. Its robust library of operators and ability to integrate with various programming languages make it versatile and adaptable to many project needs. However, it might have a steep learning curve for those not familiar with functional or reactive programming concepts.

Why this product is good

  • ReactiveX is considered good because it provides a powerful, flexible way to handle asynchronous and event-based programming challenges. Its use of observables allows for cleaner, more manageable code that can easily manage complex data streams and handle operations concurrently. This makes it a preferred choice for applications that require high-performance data processing or that need to react promptly to real-time data changes.

Recommended for

    ReactiveX is best suited for developers working on applications that require real-time updates, such as UI frameworks, data-heavy applications, or systems that need to process a significant amount of asynchronous data. It is also ideal for those who are comfortable with, or willing to learn, reactive programming paradigms and want to write more efficient, responsive code.

Analysis of jQuery

Overall verdict

  • jQuery is good for simplifying and speeding up certain JavaScript tasks, particularly in projects that need to support older browsers or if you are maintaining legacy code. However, for modern web development, many of its features are now part of the JavaScript standard, diminishing its necessity.

Why this product is good

  • jQuery has been popular due to its simplicity and ease of use, providing an easier way to work with HTML document traversal, event handling, and animations. It abstracts browser differences and offers a concise API for common JavaScript operations.

Recommended for

  • Developers maintaining or updating legacy projects that already use jQuery.
  • Projects that require compatibility with older browsers not supported by modern JavaScript features.
  • Beginners learning JavaScript concepts as an additional tool to practice DOM manipulation and event handling.

ReactiveX videos

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jQuery videos

Quick jQuery Review

More videos:

  • Review - jQuery vs Vue, React and Angular
  • Review - Front-End Development, HTML & CSS, Javascript & jQuery by Jon Duckett | Book Review
  • Review - The Legend of jQuery in 100 Seconds
  • Review - ⭕The one book I regret not having as a beginning web developer || Jon Duckett JavaScript & jQuery

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to ReactiveX and jQuery)
Javascript UI Libraries
23 23%
77% 77
Development Tools
22 22%
78% 78
Libraries And Widgets
32 32%
68% 68
JavaScript Framework
13 13%
87% 87

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare ReactiveX and jQuery

ReactiveX Reviews

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jQuery Reviews

Top 20 Javascript Libraries
jQuery dramatically simplifies JS programming and is easy to learn and use. It is highly extensible and makes web pages load faster. jQuery wraps up a lot of standard functions making the job of the developer easy. A JS code of several lines could be just a method to be called in jQuery. It also has many plugins to perform different tasks. Some of the features of jQuery are...
Source: hackr.io
Top 15 jQuery Alternatives To Know
The world is full of newer technologies and there are alternatives available for all of them. jQuery is no different. The above-mentioned technologies can be a good alternative to jQuery though jQuery itself has a loyal user base of its own. Overall, it depends upon the organizational skills, requirements, budget, and objective, based on which stakeholders can take a call on...
Best Javascript libraries to use in 2021
jQuery has been in the development scene for a long time and has been the unprecedented king for webpage dev. It is one of the most common libraries used throughout the world, with more than 50% of websites using jQuery for their functioning. jQuery is a library used majorly for Document Object Model (DOM) manipulation. The DOM is a tree-like structure that represents all...
Source: codersera.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, jQuery should be more popular than ReactiveX. It has been mentiond 102 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

ReactiveX mentions (41)

  • Kapper 1.3 supports flows - more Kotlin goodness
    Flows are a Kotlin API for asynchronous streams of data. They are similar to Rx Observables, but are simpler and more idiomatic to Kotlin. They are a great fit for asynchronous data processing, particularly for database operations where results may be large or processing needs to happen incrementally. This makes them a perfect addition to Kapper's existing coroutine support. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Hydro: Distributed Programming Framework for Rust
    It looks like a mixture between Akka (https://getakka.net/ less enterprisy than the Java version), which is based on the actor model and has a focus on distributed systems, and reactive libraries like rx (https://reactivex.io/). So maybe https://doc.akka.io/libraries/akka-core/current/stream/index.html is the best fit. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Haskell: A Great Procedural Language
    > Is there any parallel there Of course. Promise is a monad, .then is more or less equivalent to the >>= operator and await makes it look more imperative-ish just like <- in Haskell. Note that in JS you'll need to be inside an async function to use await, just like in Haskell you'll need to be inside the do notation to use <-. Otherwise, you'll need to play with .then just like you would need to play with >>= in... - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Understanding DynamicData in .NET: Reactive Data Management Made Easy
    DynamicData is a .NET library that brings the power of reactive programming to collections. It is built upon the principles of Reactive Extensions (Rx), extending these concepts to handle collections like lists and observables more efficiently and flexibly. DynamicData provides a set of tools and extensions that enable developers to manage collections reactively, meaning any changes in the data are automatically... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • What is your preferred asynchronous programming library?
    Another option is to use the RxJava library in Java. This library uses reactive programming principles to make it easy to write asynchronous and event-driven code. It's particularly well-suited for handling streams of data and allows you to write code that is both efficient and easy to read. Source: about 2 years ago
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jQuery mentions (102)

  • The Unchaining: My Personal Journey Graduating from jQuery to Modern JavaScript
    When I was building a quick frontend to the LLM game, I used jQuery to quickly whip out a prototype. Only after I was happy with it, I ported the code to the modern DOM API. As a result, I totally removed the dependency on jQuery. This whole experience makes me wonder, do people still use jQuery, in this age of frontend engineering? I took some time over the weekend to port one of my old jQuery plugins. This is... - Source: dev.to / 21 days ago
  • This One jQuery Mistake Froze Our Web Page! Here's the Fix You Need to Know
    Whenever the number of items increased, the browser became slow, sometimes even unresponsive. At first, we thought it was a server issue or maybe too much data. But no — the problem was hiding inside a small line of jQuery. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Is jQuery Dead?
    Ah, jQuery — the library that powered a generation of web apps. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Understanding Awaitables: Coroutines, Tasks, and Futures in Python
    Then we have callbacks, which were popularized by AJAX calls. Back then, with jQuery, we could define handlers to deal with both success or failure cases. For instance, let's say we want to fetch the HTML markup of this blog (skipping error failure callback for brevity), we do. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • the entire history of JavaScript, i guess
    One of them is JQuery created by John Resig. The library addresses extremely-frustrating issues related to cross-browser compatibility that existed at the time. To this day, it remains the most widely used JavaScript library in terms of actual page loads. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing ReactiveX and jQuery, you can also consider the following products

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

Babel - Babel is a compiler for writing next generation JavaScript.

Composer - Composer is a tool for dependency management in PHP.

OpenSSL - OpenSSL is a free and open source software cryptography library that implements both the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols, which are primarily used to provide secure communications between web browsers and …

Raven.js - Raven.js is a standalone JavaScript client for Sentry.

jQuery UI - Curated set of user interface interactions, effects, widgets, and themes built on top of the jQuery JavaScript Library