The State of State Management in React

The Challenge of State

As your React application grows, managing state can become one of the biggest challenges. Passing props down through many levels of components (prop drilling) can become cumbersome and lead to unmaintainable code.

From Redux to Zustand

For years, Redux was the go-to solution for complex state management. However, its boilerplate and complexity led developers to seek simpler solutions. Libraries like Zustand and Jotai have gained popularity by offering a much simpler API while still being powerful enough for large applications. They often leverage React's built-in Context API under the hood.

React Context API

For simpler use cases, you might not even need a third-party library. React's own Context API is a great way to share state that can be considered "global" for a tree of React components, such as the current authenticated user or theme.