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Modern State Management in React: Recoil vs. Zustand vs. Jotai

Majd Muhtaseb06/16/20257 minutes

Introduction

React offers built-in state management, but for complex applications, dedicated libraries often provide better performance, scalability, and developer experience. This article compares three popular and modern options: Recoil, Zustand, and Jotai.

Recoil

Recoil, developed by Facebook, focuses on reactive data-flow graphs. It's granular, efficient, and avoids unnecessary re-renders. It uses "atoms" as units of state and "selectors" to derive computed state.

import { atom, selector, useRecoilState } from 'recoil';

const textState = atom({
  key: 'textState',
  default: '',
});

const textLengthState = selector({
  key: 'textLengthState',
  get: ({ get }) => {
    const text = get(textState);
    return text.length;
  },
});

function TextInput() {
  const [text, setText] = useRecoilState(textState);
  const length = useRecoilValue(textLengthState);

  const onChange = (event) => {
    setText(event.target.value);
  };

  return (
    <div>
      <input type="text" value={text} onChange={onChange} />
      <p>Length: {length}</p>
    </div>
  );
}

Pros: Granular updates, easy integration, good for complex data dependencies. Cons: Can be more verbose than simpler solutions.

Zustand

Zustand is a small, fast, and scalable state management library using a simplified flux approach. It uses "stores" to hold state and provide actions to update it. It's unopinionated and doesn't require React context providers.

import create from 'zustand';

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

function Counter() {
  const { count, increment, decrement } = useStore();

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

Pros: Very simple API, minimal boilerplate, excellent performance. Cons: Can become less organized in very large applications.

Jotai

Jotai emphasizes atomic state and derived values using React Context under the hood. Like Recoil, it focuses on efficient updates, but with a simpler API. It uses atoms as the fundamental unit of state.

import { atom, useAtom } from 'jotai';

const countAtom = atom(0);

function Counter() {
  const [count, setCount] = useAtom(countAtom);

  return (
    <div>
      <p>Count: {count}</p>
      <button onClick={() => setCount(count + 1)}>Increment</button>
      <button onClick={() => setCount(count - 1)}>Decrement</button>
    </div>
  );
}

Pros: Simple API, good performance, easy to learn. Cons: React Context dependency, might not scale as well as Recoil for extremely complex state.

Conclusion

Choosing the right state management library depends on the specific needs of your project. Recoil is a good choice for complex applications requiring granular updates and data dependencies. Zustand is a great option for simpler applications that prioritize simplicity and performance. Jotai offers a balance between simplicity and performance, making it suitable for many mid-sized projects. Consider the trade-offs and experiment with each library to determine which best fits your workflow.