Which is Better State Management Libraries?
zustand vs @reduxjs/toolkit vs jotai vs recoil vs valtio
1 Year
zustand@reduxjs/toolkitjotairecoilvaltioSimilar Packages:
What's State Management Libraries?

State management libraries are essential tools in modern web development that help manage the state of an application in a predictable and efficient manner. They provide a structured way to handle data flow, making it easier to maintain, debug, and scale applications. These libraries offer various approaches to state management, from centralized stores to more decentralized and reactive models, catering to different application needs and developer preferences.

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zustand4,065,66246,92688.6 kB521 days agoMIT
@reduxjs/toolkit3,460,45810,6875.46 MB2842 months agoMIT
jotai1,099,52418,441427 kB816 days agoMIT
recoil503,28319,5882.21 MB3252 years agoMIT
valtio449,7899,01575.4 kB3a month agoMIT
Feature Comparison: zustand vs @reduxjs/toolkit vs jotai vs recoil vs valtio

Reactivity Model

  • zustand: Zustand provides a simple store that allows for direct state manipulation. It uses hooks for reactivity, making it easy to access and update state without the complexity of a centralized store.
  • @reduxjs/toolkit: Redux Toolkit uses a centralized store with a predictable state model based on actions and reducers. State changes are explicit, making it easier to track and debug state transitions, but it may require more boilerplate code.
  • jotai: Jotai employs an atomic state model where each piece of state is independent, allowing for fine-grained updates. This leads to more efficient re-renders, as only the components that depend on a specific atom will re-render when that atom changes.
  • recoil: Recoil introduces a reactive model that allows atoms (units of state) and selectors (derived state) to be used together. This enables complex state dependencies and asynchronous queries, providing a more flexible approach to managing state in React applications.
  • valtio: Valtio uses JavaScript proxies to create a reactive state management solution. This means that state changes are automatically tracked, and components that depend on the state will re-render without needing to explicitly manage subscriptions or updates.

Learning Curve

  • zustand: Zustand has a low learning curve, focusing on simplicity and minimalism. It is easy to set up and use, making it a great choice for developers who want to manage state without the overhead of more complex libraries.
  • @reduxjs/toolkit: Redux Toolkit has a steeper learning curve due to its concepts of actions, reducers, and middleware. However, it simplifies many of the complexities of Redux, making it more approachable than traditional Redux.
  • jotai: Jotai has a gentle learning curve, especially for those familiar with React hooks. Its atomic approach allows developers to start small and scale their state management as needed without overwhelming complexity.
  • recoil: Recoil is designed to be intuitive for React developers, leveraging familiar React concepts. Its learning curve is moderate, as it introduces new concepts like atoms and selectors but remains accessible for those with React experience.
  • valtio: Valtio is very easy to learn, especially for those who are comfortable with JavaScript. Its proxy-based approach requires minimal setup and is straightforward to implement, making it ideal for quick prototyping.

Performance

  • zustand: Zustand is lightweight and optimized for performance, allowing for fast state updates and minimal re-renders. Its simplicity contributes to efficient memory usage and responsiveness.
  • @reduxjs/toolkit: Performance in Redux Toolkit can be optimized through techniques like memoization and selective rendering. However, the centralized nature may lead to performance bottlenecks if not managed properly, especially in large applications.
  • jotai: Jotai is designed for performance, as its atomic state updates ensure that only the components that depend on a specific atom re-render. This leads to efficient updates and minimal performance overhead.
  • recoil: Recoil offers excellent performance with its ability to derive state and manage dependencies efficiently. Its architecture allows for selective re-renders, which can significantly improve performance in complex applications.
  • valtio: Valtio's use of proxies allows for automatic reactivity without the need for manual subscriptions, leading to efficient updates and good performance. It is particularly effective for applications with frequent state changes.

Extensibility

  • zustand: Zustand is highly extensible, allowing developers to create custom stores and middleware. Its simple API makes it easy to add new features and integrate with other libraries.
  • @reduxjs/toolkit: Redux Toolkit is highly extensible, allowing developers to create custom middleware, enhancers, and integrate with various libraries. This makes it suitable for large applications that may require additional functionality.
  • jotai: Jotai is extensible through its atomic model, allowing developers to create custom atoms and hooks. This flexibility enables the addition of new features without disrupting existing state management.
  • recoil: Recoil is designed to be extensible with its atoms and selectors, allowing developers to create complex state management solutions. Its architecture supports custom hooks and integrations with other libraries.
  • valtio: Valtio is relatively simple, which limits its extensibility compared to others. However, its proxy-based model can be extended through custom functions and utilities for specific use cases.

Community and Ecosystem

  • zustand: Zustand has a vibrant community and is appreciated for its simplicity and performance. It is well-documented and has a growing number of plugins and integrations.
  • @reduxjs/toolkit: Redux Toolkit benefits from a large community and a rich ecosystem of middleware, tools, and extensions. This support makes it easier to find resources and solutions for common challenges in state management.
  • jotai: Jotai has a growing community and is gaining popularity, but its ecosystem is not as extensive as Redux. However, it is well-documented and supported by a dedicated group of developers.
  • recoil: Recoil is backed by Facebook and has a rapidly growing community. Its integration with React makes it appealing, and it is supported by various resources and libraries.
  • valtio: Valtio has a smaller community but is gaining traction due to its simplicity and effectiveness. It has good documentation and is suitable for developers looking for straightforward state management solutions.
How to Choose: zustand vs @reduxjs/toolkit vs jotai vs recoil vs valtio
  • zustand: Select Zustand for a lightweight and simple state management solution that focuses on ease of use and performance. It is ideal for small to medium-sized applications where you want to avoid the overhead of larger libraries while still maintaining a clear state structure.
  • @reduxjs/toolkit: Choose Redux Toolkit if you need a robust, scalable solution for managing complex state in large applications. It is ideal for applications that require a centralized store and predictable state transitions, especially when dealing with asynchronous operations.
  • jotai: Select Jotai for a minimalistic and atomic state management approach that allows for fine-grained reactivity. It is suitable for projects where you want to manage state in a more granular way without the boilerplate code often associated with larger libraries.
  • recoil: Opt for Recoil if you are working with React and need a flexible state management solution that integrates seamlessly with React's concurrent features. It allows for derived state and asynchronous queries, making it suitable for applications with complex state dependencies.
  • valtio: Choose Valtio for a simple and proxy-based state management solution that offers automatic reactivity. It is great for projects that require minimal setup and want to avoid the complexity of more traditional state management libraries.
README for zustand

Build Status Build Size Version Downloads Discord Shield

A small, fast and scalable bearbones state-management solution using simplified flux principles. Has a comfy API based on hooks, isn't boilerplatey or opinionated.

Don't disregard it because it's cute. It has quite the claws, lots of time was spent dealing with common pitfalls, like the dreaded zombie child problem, react concurrency, and context loss between mixed renderers. It may be the one state-manager in the React space that gets all of these right.

You can try a live demo here.

npm i zustand

:warning: This readme is written for JavaScript users. If you are a TypeScript user, be sure to check out our TypeScript Usage section.

First create a store

Your store is a hook! You can put anything in it: primitives, objects, functions. State has to be updated immutably and the set function merges state to help it.

import { create } from 'zustand'

const useBearStore = create((set) => ({
  bears: 0,
  increasePopulation: () => set((state) => ({ bears: state.bears + 1 })),
  removeAllBears: () => set({ bears: 0 }),
}))

Then bind your components, and that's it!

Use the hook anywhere, no providers are needed. Select your state and the component will re-render on changes.

function BearCounter() {
  const bears = useBearStore((state) => state.bears)
  return <h1>{bears} around here ...</h1>
}

function Controls() {
  const increasePopulation = useBearStore((state) => state.increasePopulation)
  return <button onClick={increasePopulation}>one up</button>
}

Why zustand over redux?

Why zustand over context?

  • Less boilerplate
  • Renders components only on changes
  • Centralized, action-based state management

Recipes

Fetching everything

You can, but bear in mind that it will cause the component to update on every state change!

const state = useBearStore()

Selecting multiple state slices

It detects changes with strict-equality (old === new) by default, this is efficient for atomic state picks.

const nuts = useBearStore((state) => state.nuts)
const honey = useBearStore((state) => state.honey)

If you want to construct a single object with multiple state-picks inside, similar to redux's mapStateToProps, you can use useShallow to prevent unnecessary rerenders when the selector output does not change according to shallow equal.

import { create } from 'zustand'
import { useShallow } from 'zustand/react/shallow'

const useBearStore = create((set) => ({
  nuts: 0,
  honey: 0,
  treats: {},
  // ...
}))

// Object pick, re-renders the component when either state.nuts or state.honey change
const { nuts, honey } = useBearStore(
  useShallow((state) => ({ nuts: state.nuts, honey: state.honey })),
)

// Array pick, re-renders the component when either state.nuts or state.honey change
const [nuts, honey] = useBearStore(
  useShallow((state) => [state.nuts, state.honey]),
)

// Mapped picks, re-renders the component when state.treats changes in order, count or keys
const treats = useBearStore(useShallow((state) => Object.keys(state.treats)))

For more control over re-rendering, you may provide any custom equality function (this example requires the use of createWithEqualityFn).

const treats = useBearStore(
  (state) => state.treats,
  (oldTreats, newTreats) => compare(oldTreats, newTreats),
)

Overwriting state

The set function has a second argument, false by default. Instead of merging, it will replace the state model. Be careful not to wipe out parts you rely on, like actions.

import omit from 'lodash-es/omit'

const useFishStore = create((set) => ({
  salmon: 1,
  tuna: 2,
  deleteEverything: () => set({}, true), // clears the entire store, actions included
  deleteTuna: () => set((state) => omit(state, ['tuna']), true),
}))

Async actions

Just call set when you're ready, zustand doesn't care if your actions are async or not.

const useFishStore = create((set) => ({
  fishies: {},
  fetch: async (pond) => {
    const response = await fetch(pond)
    set({ fishies: await response.json() })
  },
}))

Read from state in actions

set allows fn-updates set(state => result), but you still have access to state outside of it through get.

const useSoundStore = create((set, get) => ({
  sound: 'grunt',
  action: () => {
    const sound = get().sound
    ...

Reading/writing state and reacting to changes outside of components

Sometimes you need to access state in a non-reactive way or act upon the store. For these cases, the resulting hook has utility functions attached to its prototype.

:warning: This technique is not recommended for adding state in React Server Components (typically in Next.js 13 and above). It can lead to unexpected bugs and privacy issues for your users. For more details, see #2200.

const useDogStore = create(() => ({ paw: true, snout: true, fur: true }))

// Getting non-reactive fresh state
const paw = useDogStore.getState().paw
// Listening to all changes, fires synchronously on every change
const unsub1 = useDogStore.subscribe(console.log)
// Updating state, will trigger listeners
useDogStore.setState({ paw: false })
// Unsubscribe listeners
unsub1()

// You can of course use the hook as you always would
function Component() {
  const paw = useDogStore((state) => state.paw)
  ...

Using subscribe with selector

If you need to subscribe with a selector, subscribeWithSelector middleware will help.

With this middleware subscribe accepts an additional signature:

subscribe(selector, callback, options?: { equalityFn, fireImmediately }): Unsubscribe
import { subscribeWithSelector } from 'zustand/middleware'
const useDogStore = create(
  subscribeWithSelector(() => ({ paw: true, snout: true, fur: true })),
)

// Listening to selected changes, in this case when "paw" changes
const unsub2 = useDogStore.subscribe((state) => state.paw, console.log)
// Subscribe also exposes the previous value
const unsub3 = useDogStore.subscribe(
  (state) => state.paw,
  (paw, previousPaw) => console.log(paw, previousPaw),
)
// Subscribe also supports an optional equality function
const unsub4 = useDogStore.subscribe(
  (state) => [state.paw, state.fur],
  console.log,
  { equalityFn: shallow },
)
// Subscribe and fire immediately
const unsub5 = useDogStore.subscribe((state) => state.paw, console.log, {
  fireImmediately: true,
})

Using zustand without React

Zustand core can be imported and used without the React dependency. The only difference is that the create function does not return a hook, but the API utilities.

import { createStore } from 'zustand/vanilla'

const store = createStore((set) => ...)
const { getState, setState, subscribe, getInitialState } = store

export default store

You can use a vanilla store with useStore hook available since v4.

import { useStore } from 'zustand'
import { vanillaStore } from './vanillaStore'

const useBoundStore = (selector) => useStore(vanillaStore, selector)

:warning: Note that middlewares that modify set or get are not applied to getState and setState.

Transient updates (for often occurring state-changes)

The subscribe function allows components to bind to a state-portion without forcing re-render on changes. Best combine it with useEffect for automatic unsubscribe on unmount. This can make a drastic performance impact when you are allowed to mutate the view directly.

const useScratchStore = create((set) => ({ scratches: 0, ... }))

const Component = () => {
  // Fetch initial state
  const scratchRef = useRef(useScratchStore.getState().scratches)
  // Connect to the store on mount, disconnect on unmount, catch state-changes in a reference
  useEffect(() => useScratchStore.subscribe(
    state => (scratchRef.current = state.scratches)
  ), [])
  ...

Sick of reducers and changing nested states? Use Immer!

Reducing nested structures is tiresome. Have you tried immer?

import { produce } from 'immer'

const useLushStore = create((set) => ({
  lush: { forest: { contains: { a: 'bear' } } },
  clearForest: () =>
    set(
      produce((state) => {
        state.lush.forest.contains = null
      }),
    ),
}))

const clearForest = useLushStore((state) => state.clearForest)
clearForest()

Alternatively, there are some other solutions.

Persist middleware

You can persist your store's data using any kind of storage.

import { create } from 'zustand'
import { persist, createJSONStorage } from 'zustand/middleware'

const useFishStore = create(
  persist(
    (set, get) => ({
      fishes: 0,
      addAFish: () => set({ fishes: get().fishes + 1 }),
    }),
    {
      name: 'food-storage', // name of the item in the storage (must be unique)
      storage: createJSONStorage(() => sessionStorage), // (optional) by default, 'localStorage' is used
    },
  ),
)

See the full documentation for this middleware.

Immer middleware

Immer is available as middleware too.

import { create } from 'zustand'
import { immer } from 'zustand/middleware/immer'

const useBeeStore = create(
  immer((set) => ({
    bees: 0,
    addBees: (by) =>
      set((state) => {
        state.bees += by
      }),
  })),
)

Can't live without redux-like reducers and action types?

const types = { increase: 'INCREASE', decrease: 'DECREASE' }

const reducer = (state, { type, by = 1 }) => {
  switch (type) {
    case types.increase:
      return { grumpiness: state.grumpiness + by }
    case types.decrease:
      return { grumpiness: state.grumpiness - by }
  }
}

const useGrumpyStore = create((set) => ({
  grumpiness: 0,
  dispatch: (args) => set((state) => reducer(state, args)),
}))

const dispatch = useGrumpyStore((state) => state.dispatch)
dispatch({ type: types.increase, by: 2 })

Or, just use our redux-middleware. It wires up your main-reducer, sets the initial state, and adds a dispatch function to the state itself and the vanilla API.

import { redux } from 'zustand/middleware'

const useGrumpyStore = create(redux(reducer, initialState))

Redux devtools

Install the Redux DevTools Chrome extension to use the devtools middleware.

import { devtools } from 'zustand/middleware'

// Usage with a plain action store, it will log actions as "setState"
const usePlainStore = create(devtools((set) => ...))
// Usage with a redux store, it will log full action types
const useReduxStore = create(devtools(redux(reducer, initialState)))

One redux devtools connection for multiple stores

import { devtools } from 'zustand/middleware'

// Usage with a plain action store, it will log actions as "setState"
const usePlainStore1 = create(devtools((set) => ..., { name, store: storeName1 }))
const usePlainStore2 = create(devtools((set) => ..., { name, store: storeName2 }))
// Usage with a redux store, it will log full action types
const useReduxStore = create(devtools(redux(reducer, initialState)), , { name, store: storeName3 })
const useReduxStore = create(devtools(redux(reducer, initialState)), , { name, store: storeName4 })

Assigning different connection names will separate stores in redux devtools. This also helps group different stores into separate redux devtools connections.

devtools takes the store function as its first argument, optionally you can name the store or configure serialize options with a second argument.

Name store: devtools(..., {name: "MyStore"}), which will create a separate instance named "MyStore" in the devtools.

Serialize options: devtools(..., { serialize: { options: true } }).

Logging Actions

devtools will only log actions from each separated store unlike in a typical combined reducers redux store. See an approach to combining stores https://github.com/pmndrs/zustand/issues/163

You can log a specific action type for each set function by passing a third parameter:

const useBearStore = create(devtools((set) => ({
  ...
  eatFish: () => set(
    (prev) => ({ fishes: prev.fishes > 1 ? prev.fishes - 1 : 0 }),
    undefined,
    'bear/eatFish'
  ),
  ...

You can also log the action's type along with its payload:

  ...
  addFishes: (count) => set(
    (prev) => ({ fishes: prev.fishes + count }),
    undefined,
    { type: 'bear/addFishes', count, }
  ),
  ...

If an action type is not provided, it is defaulted to "anonymous". You can customize this default value by providing an anonymousActionType parameter:

devtools(..., { anonymousActionType: 'unknown', ... })

If you wish to disable devtools (on production for instance). You can customize this setting by providing the enabled parameter:

devtools(..., { enabled: false, ... })

React context

The store created with create doesn't require context providers. In some cases, you may want to use contexts for dependency injection or if you want to initialize your store with props from a component. Because the normal store is a hook, passing it as a normal context value may violate the rules of hooks.

The recommended method available since v4 is to use the vanilla store.

import { createContext, useContext } from 'react'
import { createStore, useStore } from 'zustand'

const store = createStore(...) // vanilla store without hooks

const StoreContext = createContext()

const App = () => (
  <StoreContext.Provider value={store}>
    ...
  </StoreContext.Provider>
)

const Component = () => {
  const store = useContext(StoreContext)
  const slice = useStore(store, selector)
  ...

TypeScript Usage

Basic typescript usage doesn't require anything special except for writing create<State>()(...) instead of create(...)...

import { create } from 'zustand'
import { devtools, persist } from 'zustand/middleware'
import type {} from '@redux-devtools/extension' // required for devtools typing

interface BearState {
  bears: number
  increase: (by: number) => void
}

const useBearStore = create<BearState>()(
  devtools(
    persist(
      (set) => ({
        bears: 0,
        increase: (by) => set((state) => ({ bears: state.bears + by })),
      }),
      {
        name: 'bear-storage',
      },
    ),
  ),
)

A more complete TypeScript guide is here.

Best practices

Third-Party Libraries

Some users may want to extend Zustand's feature set which can be done using third-party libraries made by the community. For information regarding third-party libraries with Zustand, visit the doc.

Comparison with other libraries