Inequality (!=)

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The inequality (!=) operator checks whether its two operands are not equal, returning a Boolean result. Unlike the strict inequality operator, it attempts to convert and compare operands that are of different types.

Try it

console.log(1 != 1);
/ Expected output: false

console.log("hello" != "hello");
/ Expected output: false

console.log("1" != 1);
/ Expected output: false

console.log(0 != false);
/ Expected output: false

Syntax

js
x != y

Description

The inequality operator checks whether its operands are not equal. It is the negation of the equality operator so the following two lines will always give the same result:

js
x != y;

!(x == y);

For details of the comparison algorithm, see the page for the equality operator.

Like the equality operator, the inequality operator will attempt to convert and compare operands of different types:

js
3 != "3"; / false

To prevent this, and require that different types are considered to be different, use the strict inequality operator instead:

js
3 !== "3"; / true

Examples

Comparison with no type conversion

js
1 != 2; / true
"hello" != "hola"; / true

1 != 1; / false
"hello" != "hello"; / false

Comparison with type conversion

js
"1" != 1; / false
1 != "1"; / false
0 != false; / false
0 != null; / true
0 != undefined; / true
0 != !!null; / false, look at Logical NOT operator
0 != !!undefined; / false, look at Logical NOT operator
null != undefined; / false

const number1 = new Number(3);
const number2 = new Number(3);
number1 != 3; / false
number1 != number2; / true

Comparison of objects

js
const object1 = {
  key: "value",
};

const object2 = {
  key: "value",
};

console.log(object1 != object2); / true
console.log(object1 != object1); / false

Specifications

Specification
ECMAScript® 2026 Language Specification
# sec-equality-operators

Browser compatibility

See also