Which is Better State Management and Form Handling Libraries?
redux vs zustand vs formik vs mobx vs xstate vs react-query vs recoil vs mobx-state-tree
1 Year
reduxzustandformikmobxxstatereact-queryrecoilmobx-state-treeSimilar Packages:
What's State Management and Form Handling Libraries?

State management and form handling libraries are essential tools in modern web development, particularly for applications that require dynamic user interfaces and complex state interactions. These libraries provide structured ways to manage application state, handle form inputs, and facilitate data fetching and synchronization. They help developers maintain a clear separation of concerns, improve code maintainability, and enhance user experience by managing state changes efficiently. Each library has its own strengths and design philosophies, catering to different use cases and developer preferences.

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redux10,569,67060,913290 kB39a year agoMIT
zustand4,288,99047,94488.5 kB416 days agoMIT
formik2,505,26533,976583 kB8237 months agoApache-2.0
mobx1,677,62427,5564.33 MB64a month agoMIT
xstate1,593,80727,1671.69 MB1333 days agoMIT
react-query1,349,55442,4962.26 MB842 years agoMIT
recoil503,48719,6092.21 MB3212 years agoMIT
mobx-state-tree94,8476,9851.28 MB914 months agoMIT
Feature Comparison: redux vs zustand vs formik vs mobx vs xstate vs react-query vs recoil vs mobx-state-tree

State Management Approach

  • redux: Redux follows a unidirectional data flow and uses a single store to manage application state. It enforces strict rules for state changes through actions and reducers, making state management predictable and easier to debug, especially in large applications.
  • zustand: Zustand provides a minimalistic API for state management, allowing developers to create stores with hooks. It focuses on simplicity and performance, making it easy to manage state without the overhead of more complex libraries.
  • formik: Formik focuses specifically on form state management, providing a simple API to handle form inputs, validation, and submission. It abstracts away the complexities of managing form state, making it easier to build and maintain forms in React applications.
  • mobx: MobX employs a reactive programming model, allowing state to be automatically updated in the UI when changes occur. It uses observable state and computed values, making it intuitive for developers to manage application state without boilerplate code.
  • xstate: XState uses finite state machines and statecharts to manage complex state transitions and workflows. It provides a visual representation of state transitions, making it easier to reason about application state and side effects.
  • react-query: React Query abstracts the complexities of data fetching and synchronization, providing hooks for managing server state. It focuses on caching, background updates, and automatic refetching, making it ideal for applications that rely on remote data.
  • recoil: Recoil offers a flexible state management model with atoms and selectors, allowing for fine-grained state management. It integrates seamlessly with React's concurrent features, making it easy to share state across components without prop drilling.
  • mobx-state-tree: MobX-State-Tree combines the reactivity of MobX with a structured tree-like state model. It enforces a clear state shape and provides features like snapshots and patches for managing state changes, making it suitable for larger applications.

Learning Curve

  • redux: Redux has a steeper learning curve due to its strict architecture and concepts like actions, reducers, and middleware. However, once learned, it provides a powerful and predictable state management solution.
  • zustand: Zustand has a low learning curve, making it easy to pick up for developers looking for a simple state management solution. Its minimalistic API allows for quick integration into projects.
  • formik: Formik has a moderate learning curve, especially for developers who are new to form handling in React. However, its clear API and extensive documentation make it accessible for those familiar with React.
  • mobx: MobX is relatively easy to learn, especially for developers who are comfortable with reactive programming concepts. Its straightforward API allows for quick adoption, but understanding its reactivity model may take some time.
  • xstate: XState has a higher learning curve due to its unique approach based on state machines and statecharts. Understanding these concepts is crucial for effectively using the library, but it offers powerful capabilities for managing complex state.
  • react-query: React Query is easy to learn for developers familiar with React hooks. Its declarative API simplifies data fetching and caching, making it accessible for those new to managing server state.
  • recoil: Recoil has a gentle learning curve, especially for developers already familiar with React. Its atom and selector concepts are intuitive, allowing for easy state management without extensive boilerplate.
  • mobx-state-tree: MobX-State-Tree has a steeper learning curve due to its structured approach and additional concepts like snapshots and patches. However, once understood, it provides powerful tools for managing state in larger applications.

Performance

  • redux: Redux can have performance issues if not optimized correctly, especially with large state trees and frequent updates. However, using techniques like memoization and selective rendering can mitigate these issues, making Redux suitable for large applications.
  • zustand: Zustand is lightweight and performant, designed to minimize re-renders and overhead. Its simple API allows for efficient state management without the complexity of more heavyweight libraries.
  • formik: Formik is optimized for form performance, minimizing re-renders by using controlled components. However, performance can be impacted if not used correctly, especially with large forms or complex validation logic.
  • mobx: MobX is designed for high performance with its reactive model, allowing for efficient updates to the UI. It minimizes unnecessary re-renders by tracking dependencies, making it suitable for applications with dynamic state changes.
  • xstate: XState is performant in managing complex state transitions, as it leverages state machines to handle state changes efficiently. Its visual representation of state transitions can help identify performance bottlenecks in complex workflows.
  • react-query: React Query excels in performance by caching data and minimizing network requests. It automatically refetches data in the background, ensuring that the application has the most up-to-date information without impacting performance.
  • recoil: Recoil provides good performance with its fine-grained state management. It minimizes re-renders by allowing components to subscribe only to the atoms they need, making it efficient for applications with complex state dependencies.
  • mobx-state-tree: MobX-State-Tree inherits MobX's performance benefits while adding structure. Its tree-like state model allows for efficient updates and state management, making it suitable for larger applications with complex state needs.

Extensibility

  • redux: Redux is highly extensible through middleware and enhancers, allowing developers to add custom functionality such as logging, error handling, and asynchronous actions. Its ecosystem includes a wide range of libraries for various use cases.
  • zustand: Zustand is designed to be simple and extensible, allowing developers to create custom stores and hooks. Its minimalistic approach makes it easy to integrate with other libraries and frameworks.
  • formik: Formik is extensible through custom components and validation schemas, allowing developers to tailor form behavior to their specific needs. It integrates well with third-party libraries for validation and UI components.
  • mobx: MobX is highly extensible, allowing developers to create custom observables and computed values. Its reactive model can be integrated with various libraries and frameworks, making it versatile for different use cases.
  • xstate: XState is extensible through custom states, transitions, and actions, allowing developers to create complex workflows. Its statechart model can be integrated with various libraries and frameworks, providing flexibility for different applications.
  • react-query: React Query is extensible through custom hooks and query functions, allowing developers to tailor data fetching and caching strategies. Its plugin system enables integration with various data sources and APIs.
  • recoil: Recoil is designed to be extensible, allowing developers to create custom atoms and selectors. Its flexible architecture supports various state management patterns, making it adaptable to different application needs.
  • mobx-state-tree: MobX-State-Tree offers extensibility through middleware and custom actions, enabling developers to enhance state management capabilities. Its structured approach allows for clear extension points for complex applications.
How to Choose: redux vs zustand vs formik vs mobx vs xstate vs react-query vs recoil vs mobx-state-tree
  • redux: Choose Redux if you need a predictable state container for JavaScript applications. It is particularly useful for larger applications with complex state interactions, providing a unidirectional data flow and a strict structure that makes state changes predictable and easier to debug.
  • zustand: Choose Zustand if you prefer a minimalistic and lightweight state management solution. It offers a simple API with hooks for managing state without the boilerplate associated with other libraries, making it suitable for smaller applications or when you want to keep state management straightforward.
  • formik: Choose Formik if your primary focus is on managing forms in React applications. It simplifies form state management, validation, and submission handling, making it ideal for applications with complex forms that require validation and error handling.
  • mobx: Choose MobX if you prefer a reactive state management approach that is easy to use and integrates seamlessly with React. MobX provides an observable state model, allowing for automatic UI updates when the state changes, which can lead to simpler and more intuitive code.
  • xstate: Choose XState if you are looking for a powerful state management library based on finite state machines and statecharts. It excels in managing complex state transitions and side effects, making it ideal for applications with intricate workflows and state management needs.
  • react-query: Choose React Query if you are focused on data fetching and synchronization. It abstracts away the complexities of managing server state, caching, and background updates, allowing you to fetch, cache, and update data in a declarative way, which is particularly useful for applications that rely heavily on remote data.
  • recoil: Choose Recoil if you want a flexible and simple state management solution that integrates well with React's concurrent features. Recoil allows for fine-grained state management with atoms and selectors, making it easy to share state across components without prop drilling.
  • mobx-state-tree: Choose MobX-State-Tree if you need a more structured state management solution that combines the reactivity of MobX with a tree-like state model. It offers features like snapshots, patches, and built-in support for middleware, making it suitable for larger applications that require a clear state structure.
README for redux

Redux Logo

Redux is a predictable state container for JavaScript apps.

It helps you write applications that behave consistently, run in different environments (client, server, and native), and are easy to test. On top of that, it provides a great developer experience, such as live code editing combined with a time traveling debugger.

You can use Redux together with React, or with any other view library. The Redux core is tiny (2kB, including dependencies), and has a rich ecosystem of addons.

Redux Toolkit is our official recommended approach for writing Redux logic. It wraps around the Redux core, and contains packages and functions that we think are essential for building a Redux app. Redux Toolkit builds in our suggested best practices, simplifies most Redux tasks, prevents common mistakes, and makes it easier to write Redux applications.

GitHub Workflow Status npm version npm downloads redux channel on discord

Installation

Create a React Redux App

The recommended way to start new apps with React and Redux Toolkit is by using our official Redux Toolkit + TS template for Vite, or by creating a new Next.js project using Next's with-redux template.

Both of these already have Redux Toolkit and React-Redux configured appropriately for that build tool, and come with a small example app that demonstrates how to use several of Redux Toolkit's features.

# Vite with our Redux+TS template
# (using the `degit` tool to clone and extract the template)
npx degit reduxjs/redux-templates/packages/vite-template-redux my-app

# Next.js using the `with-redux` template
npx create-next-app --example with-redux my-app

We do not currently have official React Native templates, but recommend these templates for standard React Native and for Expo:

  • https://github.com/rahsheen/react-native-template-redux-typescript
  • https://github.com/rahsheen/expo-template-redux-typescript
npm install @reduxjs/toolkit react-redux

For the Redux core library by itself:

npm install redux

For more details, see the Installation docs page.

Documentation

The Redux core docs are located at https://redux.js.org, and include the full Redux tutorials, as well usage guides on general Redux patterns:

The Redux Toolkit docs are available at https://redux-toolkit.js.org, including API references and usage guides for all of the APIs included in Redux Toolkit.

Learn Redux

Redux Essentials Tutorial

The Redux Essentials tutorial is a "top-down" tutorial that teaches "how to use Redux the right way", using our latest recommended APIs and best practices. We recommend starting there.

Redux Fundamentals Tutorial

The Redux Fundamentals tutorial is a "bottom-up" tutorial that teaches "how Redux works" from first principles and without any abstractions, and why standard Redux usage patterns exist.

Help and Discussion

The #redux channel of the Reactiflux Discord community is our official resource for all questions related to learning and using Redux. Reactiflux is a great place to hang out, ask questions, and learn - please come and join us there!

Before Proceeding Further

Redux is a valuable tool for organizing your state, but you should also consider whether it's appropriate for your situation. Please don't use Redux just because someone said you should - instead, please take some time to understand the potential benefits and tradeoffs of using it.

Here are some suggestions on when it makes sense to use Redux:

  • You have reasonable amounts of data changing over time
  • You need a single source of truth for your state
  • You find that keeping all your state in a top-level component is no longer sufficient

Yes, these guidelines are subjective and vague, but this is for a good reason. The point at which you should integrate Redux into your application is different for every user and different for every application.

For more thoughts on how Redux is meant to be used, please see:

Basic Example

The whole global state of your app is stored in an object tree inside a single store. The only way to change the state tree is to create an action, an object describing what happened, and dispatch it to the store. To specify how state gets updated in response to an action, you write pure reducer functions that calculate a new state based on the old state and the action.

Redux Toolkit simplifies the process of writing Redux logic and setting up the store. With Redux Toolkit, the basic app logic looks like:

import { createSlice, configureStore } from '@reduxjs/toolkit'

const counterSlice = createSlice({
  name: 'counter',
  initialState: {
    value: 0
  },
  reducers: {
    incremented: state => {
      // Redux Toolkit allows us to write "mutating" logic in reducers. It
      // doesn't actually mutate the state because it uses the Immer library,
      // which detects changes to a "draft state" and produces a brand new
      // immutable state based off those changes
      state.value += 1
    },
    decremented: state => {
      state.value -= 1
    }
  }
})

export const { incremented, decremented } = counterSlice.actions

const store = configureStore({
  reducer: counterSlice.reducer
})

// Can still subscribe to the store
store.subscribe(() => console.log(store.getState()))

// Still pass action objects to `dispatch`, but they're created for us
store.dispatch(incremented())
// {value: 1}
store.dispatch(incremented())
// {value: 2}
store.dispatch(decremented())
// {value: 1}

Redux Toolkit allows us to write shorter logic that's easier to read, while still following the original core Redux behavior and data flow.

Logo

You can find the official logo on GitHub.

Change Log

This project adheres to Semantic Versioning. Every release, along with the migration instructions, is documented on the GitHub Releases page.

License

MIT