Using jQuery in 2026 is like showing up to a React conference with stone tools and a loincloth. Sure, it gets the job done—you can still manipulate the DOM, handle events, and make AJAX calls—but everyone's staring at you wondering why you haven't discovered modern frameworks yet. jQuery had its golden age back when cross-browser compatibility was a nightmare and vanilla JavaScript was verbose as hell. But now? With modern ES6+, fetch API, and querySelector, you're basically doing archaeology every time you type $('.class') . The framework ecosystem has evolved into React, Vue, and Svelte, while jQuery is still out there chiseling rocks. The real kicker? There are still legacy codebases out there keeping jQuery alive like some kind of digital fossil. So yeah, you might be working on a "modern" project in 2026 and find yourself debugging a jQuery plugin from 2012. Welcome to the Stone Age, developer.