What is the non-jQuery equivalent of '$(document).ready()'?

This works perfectly, from ECMA. The snippet is all you need, but if you want to dig more and explore other options check this detailed explanation.

document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function() {
  // code...
});

The window.onload doesn't equal to JQuery $(document).ready because $(document).ready waits only to the DOM tree while window.onload check all elements including external assets and images.

EDIT: Added IE8 and older equivalent, thanks to Jan Derk's observation. You may read the source of this code on MDN:

// alternative to DOMContentLoaded
document.onreadystatechange = function () {
    if (document.readyState == "interactive") {
        // Initialize your application or run some code.
    }
}

There are other options apart from "interactive". See the MDN docs for details.

Now that it's 2018 here's a quick and simple method.

This will add an event listener, but if it already fired we'll check that the dom is in a ready state or that it's complete. This can fire before or after sub-resources have finished loading (images, stylesheets, frames, etc).

function domReady(fn) {
  // If we're early to the party
  document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", fn);
  // If late; I mean on time.
  if (document.readyState === "interactive" || document.readyState === "complete" ) {
    fn();
  }
}

domReady(() => console.log("DOM is ready, come and get it!"));

Additional Readings

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Events/DOMContentLoaded
  • Checking whether loading is already complete
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document/readyState

Update

Here's some quick utility helpers using standard ES6 Import & Export I wrote that include TypeScript as well. Maybe I can get around to making these a quick library that can be installed into projects as a dependency.

JavaScript

export const domReady = (callBack) => {
  if (document.readyState === "loading") {
    document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', callBack);
  }
  else {
    callBack();
  }
}

export const windowReady = (callBack) => {
  if (document.readyState === 'complete') {
    callBack();
  }
  else {
    window.addEventListener('load', callBack);
  }
}

TypeScript

export const domReady = (callBack: () => void) => {
  if (document.readyState === "loading") {
    document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', callBack);
  }
  else {
    callBack();
  }
}

export const windowReady = (callBack: () => void) => {
  if (document.readyState === 'complete') {
    callBack();
  }
  else {
    window.addEventListener('load', callBack);
  }
}

Promises

export const domReady = new Promise(resolve => {
  if (document.readyState === "loading") {
    document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', resolve);
  }
  else {
    resolve();
  }
});

export const windowReady = new Promise(resolve => {
  if (document.readyState === 'complete') {
    resolve();
  }
  else {
    window.addEventListener('load', resolve);
  }
});

A little thing I put together

domready.js

(function(exports, d) {
  function domReady(fn, context) {

    function onReady(event) {
      d.removeEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", onReady);
      fn.call(context || exports, event);
    }

    function onReadyIe(event) {
      if (d.readyState === "complete") {
        d.detachEvent("onreadystatechange", onReadyIe);
        fn.call(context || exports, event);
      }
    }

    d.addEventListener && d.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", onReady) ||
    d.attachEvent      && d.attachEvent("onreadystatechange", onReadyIe);
  }

  exports.domReady = domReady;
})(window, document);

How to use it

<script src="domready.js"></script>
<script>
  domReady(function(event) {
    alert("dom is ready!");
  });
</script>

You can also change the context in which the callback runs by passing a second argument

function init(event) {
  alert("check the console");
  this.log(event);
}

domReady(init, console);