I'm maintaining an old jQuery site that I can't rewrite from scratch due to time constraints. I was wondering if it still makes sense to use it or if I should migrate everything to vanilla JavaScript. The project isn't huge, just a few pages with effects and form validations.
jQuery isn't dead like a lot of people think, especially if your site works fine and you're not under pressure to refactor. Vanilla JS is simpler today compared to ten years ago, but for a small project with effects and validations, jQuery still gets the job done without complications. The only thing to watch out for is that the library still gets security updates, so make sure you keep it up to date. If you do want to migrate bit by bit toward vanilla at some point, it's doable without breaking things - you don't have to do it all at once.
If your site works and you're not in a hurry to change, jQuery keeps doing its job perfectly fine. For a small project with effects and validations, the cost of migrating to vanilla JS doesn't justify the benefit - especially since jQuery is still maintained and lightweight if you load it from a CDN.
The thing is, you don't have to go all-or-nothing. If at some point you need to add something new, write that part directly in vanilla JS without any issues - jQuery and vanilla coexist in the same project without conflict. I've seen plenty of hybrid sites like that working smoothly. That way you avoid a traumatic rewrite but slowly modernize what you touch.
If instead the site is completely stagnant and nobody's going to touch it for years, jQuery remains what it is: a solid library for doing what it does. You don't need a framework, you don't need Webpack, you don't need anything special. Migration only makes sense if you have time to invest and resources that justify the change.
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