jQuery is a multi-browser JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML. It was released in January 2006 at BarCamp NYC by John Resig. It is currently developed by a team of developers led by Dave Methvin. Used by over 65% of the 10,000 most visited websites, jQuery is the most popular JavaScript library in use today.

jQuery is free, open source software, licensed under the MIT License. jQuery's syntax is designed to make it easier to navigate a document, select DOM elements, create animations, handle events, and develop Ajax applications.