What well known JavaScript libraries are located on CDN's, and what are the URLs'?

Question

It's pretty common knowledge that JQuery is in both the Microsoft and Google CDN, but there are more and more I'm hearing about such as Yahoo YAPI and others.

I'm a new web developer and am interested in hearing about what libraries are widely used, located on a CDN, and worth learning about. What libraries would you recommend?

Answer 1

Google hosts a few more than jQuery, so it's a pretty good CDN resource:

• Dojo
• Ext Core
• jQuery
• jQuery UI
• MooTools
• Prototype
• script.aculo.us

Another benefit of Google's that's not as publicized as it should be is it hosts most previous versions and lets your access it in a number of ways, for example:

• jQuery 1.4.2: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.js
• Latest 1.4.x: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4/jquery.js
• Latest 1.x.x: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.js
• jQuery 1.3.2: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.js

And another not-so-publicized feature is they host jQuery UI and the CSS/images for all the base themes, there's a question on it here, just change the version numbers in the URL to match the library version you're using.

Answer 2

Library is up to you. jQuery has a lot of momentum and Microsoft have adopted it, so I'd say it is a good contender.

Google hosts quite a few libraries.

The Microsoft CDN is not as good, as it doesn't use its own domain, so you may end up with cookie data from the Microsoft site being passed around.

Answer 3

You can read more about CDNs in this post.