State Management Comparison

Choosing the Right State Management Solution

With so many state management options available, choosing the right one can be overwhelming. This guide compares the major solutions to help you make an informed decision based on your project's needs, team experience, and scalability requirements.

Quick Recommendation Guide

When to Use Each

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    STATE MANAGEMENT DECISION TREE                │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                  │
│  Do you need to share state between components?                  │
│  ├── No → useState is sufficient                                 │
│  └── Yes ↓                                                       │
│                                                                  │
│  Is it server data (API responses)?                              │
│  ├── Yes → TanStack Query or SWR                                 │
│  └── No (client state) ↓                                         │
│                                                                  │
│  Is it just theme/auth/locale?                                   │
│  ├── Yes → Context API                                           │
│  └── No (complex client state) ↓                                 │
│                                                                  │
│  Need predictable state + time-travel debugging?                 │
│  ├── Yes → Redux Toolkit                                         │
│  └── No ↓                                                        │
│                                                                  │
│  Prefer atomic/bottom-up state?                                  │
│  ├── Yes → Jotai                                                 │
│  └── No → Zustand                                                │
│                                                                  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Common Combinations

Code Comparison: Counter Example

// Context API
const CountContext = createContext();
function CountProvider({ children }) {
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0);
  return <CountContext.Provider value={{ count, setCount }}>{children}</CountContext.Provider>;
}

// Redux Toolkit
const counterSlice = createSlice({
  name: 'counter',
  initialState: { value: 0 },
  reducers: { increment: state => { state.value++ } }
});

// Zustand
const useStore = create((set) => ({
  count: 0,
  increment: () => set((state) => ({ count: state.count + 1 }))
}));

// Jotai
const countAtom = atom(0);
function Counter() {
  const [count, setCount] = useAtom(countAtom);
}

// MobX
class CounterStore {
  count = 0;
  constructor() { makeAutoObservable(this); }
  increment() { this.count++; }
}