Even in 2025, jQuery continues to silently power countless websites and applications — especially in CMS-based projects, enterprise dashboards, and legacy codebases. But over the years, this flexibility has also enabled a wave of bad practices and shortcuts.

Whether you’re maintaining legacy projects or prototyping fast, knowing what not to do with jQuery is just as important as knowing how to use it.

In this post, I’ll cover 10 mistakes developers still make with jQuery — even today — and how you can avoid them using modern approaches.

🚫 1. Using jQuery for Everything

Too many devs still use jQuery for things like hiding/showing elements, adding classes, or handling clicks — even when modern JavaScript can handle it natively.

Example:

$('#el').hide(); // ❌

Better:

document.getElementById('el').style.display = 'none'; // ✅

🕰️ 2. Forgetting to Wait for DOM Ready

If you don’t wrap your code in $(document).ready() or shorthand $(function() {...}), your selectors might break before the DOM is fully loaded.

🐌 3. Repeating DOM Selections

Calling $('.element') multiple times is a performance hit. Cache your selections using variables.

🧩 4. Improper Event Binding

Binding directly to elements that are injected later won’t work. Use event delegation:

$(document).on('click', '.dynamic-btn', function() {
  // works even for future elements
});

🧵 5. Not Using Chaining

Chaining methods makes your code cleaner, faster, and easier to read:

$('#el').addClass('active').fadeIn(); // ✅

🧠 The Remaining 5 Mistakes Include:

• Overusing $.each() instead of Array.forEach()
• DOM manipulation inside loops (performance killer)
• Incorrect selector syntax (missing quotes or typos)
• Not cleaning up event listeners (hello memory leaks)
• Still using outdated jQuery versions (😬)

✅ Read the full post here with code examples, real-world context, and modern fixes:

👉 https://www.nexgismo.com/blog/10-common-jquery-mistakes

💬 Let me know in the comments:
Which jQuery mistake have YOU seen or fixed recently?