Building Scalable Web Applications with Zustand: A Modern State Management Approach

Managing application state effectively is one of the fundamental challenges in frontend development. React provides a great framework for building interactive user interfaces, but for complex applications, React’s built-in state management can quickly become unwieldy. Over the years, developers have created an array of tools to tackle state management — from Redux to MobX to Recoil. In this article, we’ll dive deep into Zustand, a rising star in the world of state management libraries.

What is Zustand?

Zustand (German for "state") is a small, fast, and scalable bearbones state-management library by the creators of Jotai and other libraries in the pmndrs ecosystem. It offers a minimalistic and flexible state container that avoids the boilerplate associated with Redux, while preserving excellent performance and developer experience.

Why Zustand?

Zustand’s popularity has been growing steadily in the React community for good reason:

• ✅ Minimal Boilerplate: Zustand requires very little setup code compared to Redux.
• ✅ No Provider, No Context: Your store exists outside of React’s context system, reducing re-renders and improving performance.
• ✅ Great Typescript Support: Zustand is written in Typescript and feels natural to use in Typescript projects.
• ✅ Selective Subscriptions: Zustand allows components to subscribe only to the state they need — no unnecessary re-renders!
• ✅ DevTools Friendly: With middleware support, it works with Redux DevTools.

Getting Started

Let’s dive in by building a simple example using Zustand.

Step 1: Setup Your Project

First, let’s create a new project using Vite for fast setup:

npm create vite@latest my-zustand-app --template react
cd my-zustand-app
npm install
npm install zustand

Step 2: Create a Zustand Store

Create a file called useStore.ts:

import { create } from 'zustand'

interface BearState {
  bears: number
  increasePopulation: () => void
  removeAllBears: () => void
}

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

export default useBearStore

Let’s break this down:

• create sets up the store.
• We define actions right alongside the state using function callbacks.

Step 3: Using the Store in Components

Now, in your React component:

import React from 'react'
import useBearStore from './useStore'

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

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

export default function App() {
  return (
    <div>
      <BearCounter />
      <Controls />
    </div>
  )
}

Notice how we can selectively extract state slices with the selector function (state) => state.bears. This minimizes component re-renders — a big win for performance.

Advanced Patterns with Zustand

Middleware Support

Zustand supports middlewares out of the box to extend store behavior. You can use middleware for:

• DevTools integration
• Persistence (e.g., localStorage)
• Logging

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

interface State {
  count: number
  increment: () => void
}

const useStore = create<State>()(
  devtools(
    persist((set) => ({
      count: 0,
      increment: () => set((state) => ({ count: state.count + 1 }))
    }), {
      name: 'counter-storage'
    })
  )
)

Computed (Derived) State

Although Zustand doesn’t have built-in computed state, it's straightforward to derive values manually:

const count = useStore((state) => state.count)
const isEven = count % 2 === 0

Alternatively, you can define selector hooks:

const useIsEven = () => useStore((state) => state.count % 2 === 0)

Zustand vs Redux

Let’s compare Zustand with Redux to see how they stack up:

Feature	Zustand	Redux
Boilerplate	Minimal	Verbose
Learning Curve	Easy	Steep
Redux DevTools	Yes	Yes
Persistence	Easy w/ middleware	Requires setup
Context Dependency	No	Yes (Providers)
File Structure	Flexible	Opinionated

For new projects or small to medium applications, Zustand can dramatically simplify your state management overhead. For very large enterprise applications with highly structured flows, Redux might still hold an edge due to its ecosystem and middleware extensibility.

Use Cases for Zustand

Zustand shines in many scenarios:

• React Native apps
• PWA and SPA apps
• Dashboard/component-heavy applications
• Backend dashboards with real-time data (e.g., Socket, Supabase)
• Game state management

What Zustand Lacks

Despite its strengths, Zustand isn't perfect:

• There's no opinionated way to structure stores (could be a pro or con!)
• Lacks built-in support for async actions (though easy to handle via async/await)
• Community and ecosystem is still growing compared to Redux

Conclusion

Zustand is a solid choice for developers seeking simplicity and performance without boilerplate. It’s flexible enough for small projects and powerful enough to scale. Whether you’re building a dashboard, mobile app, or even experimenting with real-time or AI-powered interfaces, Zustand offers the tools you need to manage state with ease.

If you’re tired of writing verbose action types and reducers, give Zustand a try. You might find it’s the bear necessity you were missing! 🐻

Additional Resources

• Zustand GitHub Repository
• Zustand Documentation
• Zustand Examples

Happy coding!

✅ If you need help building frontend architecture or scalable React applications using Zustand – we offer such services.