[dbkaplun]

React is a view library. It keeps the page to date with your data, much like Vue or Angular.

jQuery is a DOM manipulation library, so in a sense it is lower level than React. It abstracts the DOM implementations across browsers to provide a unified interface. It lets you do things like animations, and find element dimensions in a cross-browser way.

Today, developers are choosing React because it more closely aligns with the needs of modern webapps. Most browsers have become more standards-compliant so jQuery is not such a necessity anymore. React is a fast and readable library to keep your page up to date with your data.