I still write applications where I don't need modern frameworks like Vue/React at all.
jQuery is not an alternative to React or Vue. It's an alternative to vanilla JS.
When you're writing something that doesn't obviously need everything a reactive app framework like React offers the question you need to be asking isn't "Do I need React or do I only need jQuery?", it's simply "Do I need jQuery?". These days, unless you need to support very old browsers, most of the time the jQuery code isn't that much simpler than writing plain old JS.
jQuery is not an alternative to React or Vue. It's an alternative to vanilla JS.
When you're writing something that doesn't obviously need everything a reactive app framework like React offers the question you need to be asking isn't "Do I need React or do I only need jQuery?", it's simply "Do I need jQuery?". These days, unless you need to support very old browsers, most of the time the jQuery code isn't that much simpler than writing plain old JS.