5 React State Management Tools Developers Actually Use in 2025

Building modern single-page applications with React is exciting, but as your app grows, managing state becomes essential. State isn’t just about form inputs; it includes API responses, application status, and more.

Effective state management ensures your UI stays consistent, responsive, and predictable, even when handling dynamic data, asynchronous calls, and user interactions. Without a clear strategy, scattered states and duplication can lead to complexity and bugs. That’s why leveraging robust libraries for centralized state management is key to creating scalable, high-performance applications with seamless user experiences.

This article examines five React state management libraries, each with its own distinct architecture for building scalable, high-performance applications.

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Redux toolkit

Redux remains a cornerstone of state management in React, built on the Flux architecture introduced by Facebook (Meta). It enforces a predictable, unidirectional data flow by centralizing state in a single store, ensuring that updates occur in a linear, controlled manner. This approach makes complex applications easier to maintain, reduces errors, and keeps UI logic consistent.

Previously, Redux required extensive boilerplate, but Redux Toolkit (RTK) has transformed the experience. RTK simplifies setup, reduces boilerplate, and introduces modern features like hooks, built-in async handling with RTK Query, and seamless TypeScript integration. For enterprise-grade applications that demand scalability, performance, and clarity, Redux Toolkit is a reliable and future-proof choice.

Example

import { createSlice, configureStore } from '@reduxjs/toolkit';
import { useSelector, useDispatch, Provider } from 'react-redux';

// Create a slice
const counterSlice = createSlice({
    name: 'counter',
    initialState: { value: 0 },
    reducers: {
        increment: (state) => { state.value += 1 },
        decrement: (state) => { state.value -= 1 },
        incrementByAmount: (state, action) => { state.value += action.payload; }
    }
});

// Configure store
const store = configureStore({
    reducer: { counter: counterSlice.reducer }
});

// Component usage
function Counter() {
    const count = useSelector((state) => state.counter.value);
    const dispatch = useDispatch();

    return (
        <div>
            <h1>{count}</h1>
            <button onClick={() => dispatch(counterSlice.actions.increment())}>Increment</button>
            <button onClick={() => dispatch(counterSlice.actions.decrement())}>Decrement</button>
        </div>
    );
}

// App wrapper
function App() {
    return (
        <Provider store={store}>
            <Counter />
        </Provider>
    );
}

Advantages

• Battle-tested: Used by thousands of enterprise applications
• Predictable state updates: Strict unidirectional data flow
• RTK query included: In-built data fetching and caching solution
• Developer tool: Comes with Redux devtools that help in comprehensive debugging
• Extendable: Extensive middlewares for asynchronous operation and monitoring

Disadvantages

• Setup: Even after using the toolkit, more configuration is required for integration.
• Learning curve: It takes time to master concepts like reducers, actions, dispatchers, immutability, etc.
• Not suitable for small apps: It is overkill for a small skill, too complex for applications that need simple state management.
• Provider overhead: The application has to be wrapped in a Provider to make use of it.

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Zustand

Zustand is a small, fast, and scalable state management tool that follows the principles of the Flux architecture while leveraging hooks to simplify state management. It offers a minimal API and eliminates the need for boilerplate or wrapping the application with a Provider, making it an excellent choice for integration with existing state management tools without conflict.

Example

import create from 'zustand';

// Create store
const useStore = create((set) => ({
    count: 0,
    increment: () => set((state) => ({ count: state.count + 1 })),
    decrement: () => set((state) => ({ count: state.count - 1 })),
    reset: () => set({ count: 0 })
}));

// Component usage
function Counter() {
    const count = useStore((state) => state.count);
    const increment = useStore((state) => state.increment);
    const decrement = useStore((state) => state.decrement);

    return (
        <div>
            <h1>{count}</h1>
            <button onClick={increment}>Increment</button>
            <button onClick={decrement}>Decrement</button>
        </div>
    );
}

Advantages

• No boilerplate: It has a simple API; install it and it is ready to use. No need to wrap with provider.
• No context dependency: Works without React context, removing the re-rendering issue.
• Flexible: Can be used outside React components and with other state management tools
• Developer tool: Option to integrate with Redux devtools that help in comprehensive debugging
• Typescript support: Excellent typescript support out of the box
• Tiny size: ~1kb gzipped.

Disadvantages

• Greater chance of inconsistency: As there is no strict pattern or structure, this freedom could result in possible issues with an inconsistent pattern in a large codebase.
• Not mature: It is not battle-tested like Redux for large enterprise applications
• Limited room for extensibility: Less extensive middleware ecosystem

Mobx

MobX applies reactive programming principles to state management, offering an alternate approach where components observe state and automatically react to changes. This makes state updates implicit and seamless. By using observable state and automatic dependency tracking, MobX enables efficient state management at scale with a simple API.

Mobx only re-renders the components that are directly affected by state changes, resulting in superior performance in applications with complex state relations.

Example

import { makeObservable, observable, action, computed } from 'mobx';
import { observer } from 'mobx-react-lite';

// Create store class
class CounterStore {
    count = 0;

    constructor() {
        makeObservable(this, {
            count: observable,
            increment: action,
            decrement: action,
            doubleCount: computed
        });
    }

    increment() {
        this.count++;
    }

    decrement() {
        this.count--;
    }

    get doubleCount() {
        return this.count * 2;
    }
}

const counterStore = new CounterStore();

// Component usage
const Counter = observer(() => {
    return (
        <div>
            <h1>{counterStore.count}</h1>
            <h2>Double: {counterStore.doubleCount}</h2>
            <button onClick={() => counterStore.increment()}>Increment</button>
            <button onClick={() => counterStore.decrement()}>Decrement</button>
        </div>
    );
});

Advantages

• Reactive: Automatic reactivity under the hood; no manual subscription of the component is required.
• Object-oriented: Uses class-based patterns.
• Performant: Fine-grained updates using state memoization, resulting in minimal re-renders, optimizing the performance.

Disadvantages

• Deeper understanding: Need to have a good understanding of the Reactive programming concepts, otherwise it will be harder to debug with the magical behavior of automatic re-rendering.
• Class-based: It uses object-oriented programming concepts, which do not align with React’s functional programming.
• Decorator dependency: Uses decorators under the hood, which is an experimental JavaScript feature.

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Jotai

Jotai builds on Recoil’s principles, using atoms (units of state) and selectors to create a graph-based approach to state management in React. It supports concurrent state modifications and asynchronous queries, integrating smoothly with React Suspense for performance-sensitive applications.

Jotai also addresses limitations in Redux and MobX by improving derived data handling and cross-component synchronization.

Example

import { atom, useAtom, useAtomValue, useSetAtom } from 'jotai';

// Define atoms
const countAtom = atom(0);
const doubleCountAtom = atom((get) => get(countAtom) * 2);

// Component usage
function Counter() {
    const [count, setCount] = useAtom(countAtom);
    const doubleCount = useAtomValue(doubleCountAtom);

    return (
        <div>
            <h1>Count: {count}</h1>
            <h2>Double: {doubleCount}</h2>
            <button onClick={() => setCount(count + 1)}>Increment</button>
        </div>
    );
}

// Advanced: Async atoms
const userAtom = atom(async (get) => {
    const userId = get(userIdAtom);
    const response = await fetch(`/api/users/${userId}`);
    return response.json();
});

// Write-only atom
const decrementAtom = atom(
    null,
    (get, set) => set(countAtom, get(countAtom) - 1)
);

function DecrementButton() {
    const decrement = useSetAtom(decrementAtom);
    return <button onClick={decrement}>Decrement</button>;
}

Advantages

• Atomic architecture: Fine-grained reactivity and updates
• Built-in Async support: Native support for atoms to do asynchronous operations with suspense integration.
• React-first: Built to work with the concurrent features of React.
• Performant: Only components using specific atoms are re-rendered.
• Tiny-size: ~2.6KB gzipped

Disadvantages

• Uncontrolled atoms: Developer need to work on their atomic thinking, otherwise they may end up creating too many small atoms.
• Debugging issue: Hard to trace state flow if the number of atoms increases.
• Immature: Have been recently in the market, less battle-tested on the enterprise scale application.

Recoil

Recoil is a state management library developed by Facebook, designed specifically for React. It introduces atoms (units of state) and selectors (derived/computed state), enabling fine-grained reactivity and seamless integration with React’s concurrent features like Suspense.

Example

# Install Recoil
npm install recoil
// state.js
import { atom } from 'recoil';

export const counterState = atom({
    key: 'counterState', // unique ID
    default: 0,          // default value
});

// Counter.js
import React from 'react';
import { useRecoilState } from 'recoil';
import { counterState } from './state';

function Counter() {
    const [count, setCount] = useRecoilState(counterState);
    return (
    );
}
export default Counter;

// index.js (React 18)
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom/client';
import { RecoilRoot } from 'recoil';
import Counter from './Counter';

const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById('root'));
root.render(
);

Advantages

• Works seamlessly with React’s Suspense for handling asynchronous data.
• Minimal boilerplate: Atoms/selectors are plain JavaScript objects/functions.
• Fine-grained updates: Only components that use specific atoms re-render.
• Good composition: Atoms can be read and written in any component.
• Built with modern React concurrency patterns in mind.

Disadvantages

• Still relatively young compared to Redux/MobX; ecosystem and tooling are smaller.
• Limited devtools compared to more established solutions.
• Patterns for large-scale apps are still evolving: fewer “battle-tested” best practices.
• Requires learning Recoil-specific concepts (atoms, selectors, families), so it’s not just “plain React state”.

Comparison

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Conclusion

Choosing the right state management library can significantly impact the scalability and performance of your React app. Whether you prefer Redux Toolkit’s predictability or Zustand’s simplicity, these tools offer solutions for modern development challenges. Ready to optimize your React workflow? Start experimenting with one today!

Here’s a quick guide to choosing the right tool:

• Medium apps: Zustand, minimal setup, scalable.
• Enterprise apps: Redux Toolkit, robust and battle-tested.
• Automatic reactivity: MobX, great for complex state relationships.
• Fine-grained control: Jotai, atomic and performant.

Many successful applications utilize multiple state management tools to achieve optimal results.

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