> React was a blessing for the few creating apps that needed more than jquery, and that AngularJS 1 couldn't handle for perfs reason.
React solved a very specific issue that was a pain in Angular, which is making it easy to write small, self-contained components and attach them to a mostly static site. That people decided to use it to make entire SPAs further illustrates how much easier they found it than other solutions.
I can't think of a case where JQuery code is ever simpler than React code, even for small things. If you need to worry about the order of rendered items or moving them into different categories on a page based on input, it's much simpler in React.
React solved a very specific issue that was a pain in Angular, which is making it easy to write small, self-contained components and attach them to a mostly static site. That people decided to use it to make entire SPAs further illustrates how much easier they found it than other solutions.
I can't think of a case where JQuery code is ever simpler than React code, even for small things. If you need to worry about the order of rendered items or moving them into different categories on a page based on input, it's much simpler in React.