6 Lightweight jQuery Alternatives
The Javascript library jQuery has grown a lot over time and even the .min.js version is now almost 100 KB in size. However many of jQuerys functions are often not used at all. In addition to the download size, rendering time is a factor which can slow down the page loading on old smartphones. Considering those factors it might be worth looking for lighter alternatives. The basic functions that define jQuery however should still be available in the alternative libraries we’re looking at.
I compared some of the most frequently mentioned jQuery alternatives. The selection of features that were compared is purely subjective and based on the functions that I often use personally. For the GZIP compression the highest compression rate (gzip -9) was used. So the actual size in the browser may differ. The functions in the table below are named after the original jQuery functions and may be called differently in some of the frameworks.
Feature Comparison⌗
| jQuery 1.12.0 | jQuery 2.2.0 | Zepto 1.1.6 | Sprint.js | Minified.js 1.1 (Web) | Cash 1.0.0 | Umbrella JS 1.1.3 | ki.js | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Size (Minified) | 97 KB | 86 KB | 25 KB | 17 KB | 10 KB | 8 KB | 5 KB | 602 Byte |
| Size (GZIP) | 34 KB | 30 KB | 9 KB | 5 KB | 4 KB | 3 KB | 2 KB | 404 Byte |
| Ready-Function | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| each() (Array) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Ajax | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| ID-Selector | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Class-Selector | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| .on()-Events | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| hide()/show() | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| append()/html() | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
File Size Comparisonx⌗
Here is a graph that shows the different sizes of the libraries. Notably here is ki.js, which is less than 1 KB in size and thus over 100 times smaller than jQuery:
Abstinence⌗
For websites that don’t use much Javascript, it’s possible to not use libraries like jQuery at all by using the good old native functions instead. You might have a look at youmightnotneedjquery.com for that. The site shows the corresponding native functions for many of the jQuery functions.