⚡ JavaScript Libraries in South Africa

JavaScript libraries are collections of prewritten code that provide reusable functions and components for building interactive features and handling common client-side tasks in web applications.

South Africa is an African country with a population of over 60 million people.

According to our statistics, JavaScript libraries are used on 76.3% of websites from South Africa.

⭐ Most Popular in 2026

The following chart shows the top JavaScript libraries in South Africa in 2026, based on market share.

The most popular is jQuery, which dominates the market with an overwhelming 92.5% share.
It is followed by Swiper with 26.9% and ImagesLoaded with 18.1%.

jQuery 92.5%
Swiper 26.9%
ImagesLoaded 18.1%
Polyfill 17.7%
Facebook SDK 16.5%
🍪 JS Cookie 16%
Lottie 14.4%
jQuery BlockUI 14.3%
Waypoints 13.4%
Underscore.js 11.4%
Owl Carousel 10.9%
Magnific Popup 9.9%
MediaElement.js 9.6%
Slick 9.5%
FlexSlider 9.4%

🚀 Highlights

Here is a list of the top libraries that are more popular in South Africa than worldwide.
Differences between global and country rankings are shown in parentheses.

3. ImagesLoaded ^(-2)
6. 🍪 JS Cookie ^(-2)
7. Lottie ^(-3)
8. jQuery BlockUI ^(-8)
9. Waypoints ^(-2)
10. Underscore.js ^(-7)
12. Magnific Popup ^(-2)
13. MediaElement.js ^(-2)
15. FlexSlider ^(-4)
17. SmartMenus ^(-7)

✨ Best JavaScript Libraries

Below is a more detailed list of the top 25 of the 252 JavaScript libraries used on sites from South Africa, ranked by their market share.

Rank	Name	Market share
1	jQuery San Francisco, California, United States A fast, small, feature-rich JavaScript library designed to simplify HTML DOM tree traversal and manipulation, event handling, CSS animations, and Ajax. FreeOpen source	92.5%
2	Swiper Weston, Florida, United States A modern touch slider library for building responsive sliders and carousels with hardware-accelerated transitions. FreeOpen source	26.9%
3	ImagesLoaded Alexandria, Virginia, United States A JavaScript library that detects when images have been loaded. FreeOpen source	18.1%
4	Polyfill An open-source JavaScript library that provides modern web API features to older browsers that do not natively support them. FreeOpen source	17.7%
5	Facebook SDK Menlo Park, California, United States A library that provides client-side tools for Social Plugins, Facebook Login, and Graph API calls. Free	16.5%
6	🍪 JS Cookie Germany A simple, lightweight JavaScript library for handling browser cookies. FreeOpen source	16%
7	Lottie San Francisco, California, United States An animation framework created by Airbnb that lets developers export Adobe After Effects animations as JSON and render them natively on mobile, desktop, and the web. FreeOpen source	14.4%
8	jQuery BlockUI Allows you to block user interaction on the page or part of the page. FreeOpen source	14.3%
9	Waypoints West Linn, Oregon, United States A library that makes it easy to execute a function whenever you scroll to an element. FreeOpen source	13.4%
10	Underscore.js Boston, Massachusetts, United States A utility library for JavaScript that provides support for functional programming helpers (each, map, reduce, filter) without extending any built-in JavaScript objects. FreeOpen source	11.4%
11	Owl Carousel Germany A touch enabled jQuery plugin that lets you create a beautiful, responsive carousel slider. FreeOpen source	10.9%
12	Magnific Popup A responsive lightbox and dialog plugin for jQuery and Zepto.js. FreeOpen sourceLegacy	9.9%
13	MediaElement.js Dallas, Texas, United States A free audio and video player with support for media files (MP4, WebM, MP3), streaming content (HLS, Dash), and embeddable players (YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Twitch, SoundCloud, etc). FreeOpen source	9.6%
14	Slick An open-source, fully responsive and accessible carousel library. FreeOpen source	9.5%
15	FlexSlider San Francisco, California, United States A responsive jQuery slider created by the WooCommerce team and included with WooCommerce. FreeOpen source	9.4%
16	Modernizr A JavaScript library that detects the availability of HTML, CSS and JavaScript features in the user's browser. FreeOpen source	8.9%
17	SmartMenus A jQuery plugin for creating mobile-first, responsive, and accessible list-based website menus that work on all devices. FreeOpen source	8.8%
18	Regenerator Menlo Park, California, United States A JavaScript library from Facebook that allows the use of ES6 generators in older browsers. FreeOpen source	8.4%
19	Isotope Alexandria, Virginia, United States A commercial JavaScript library for creating filterable and sortable grid layouts. FreeOpen source$25+	7.7%
20	React Menlo Park, California, United States A popular open-source JavaScript library for building dynamic user interfaces, created by Facebook. FreeOpen source	7.4%
21	jQuery Easing Wilberfoss, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom A jQuery plugin that adds 10+ advanced easing animations. FreeOpen source	7.4%
22	Lightbox San Francisco, California, United States The original lightbox library used to overlay images on top of the current page. FreeOpen source	6.2%
23	Select2 A jQuery based replacement for select boxes. FreeOpen source	5.6%
24	Fancyapps A commercial library of JavaScript UI components that includes lightbox, carousel, and pan/zoom components. €29+	5.3%
25	jQuery Mousewheel A jQuery plugin that adds cross-browser mouse wheel support. FreeOpen sourceLegacy	5.1%

👉 See Also

✨ Related Technologies
- JavaScript
🌎 JavaScript Libraries in other countries

Data is based on the analysis of 17,797 websites from South Africa.
Statistics were last calculated on March 20, 2026.
For details, see our methodology and disclaimer.