For years, Redux shaped how React developers approached state management. A single global store became the default solution for everything, from business data to temporary UI state.
Today, however, the React ecosystem looks very different. Instead of relying on a single dominant library, developers can choose from Redux, Zustand, MobX, Jotai, XState, Valtio, and many other tools. So what changed?
Why React State Management Changed
React provides built-in tools for state management, such as useState, useReducer (since v16.8) , and Context (since v16.3). And, perhaps surprisingly, they are enough for many applications. Introducing an external React state management library where it isn't needed often adds complexity instead of solving problems.
However, once an application needs to:
Share data across many components;
Isolate business logic from the UI;
Prevent unnecessary re-renders;
Keep increasingly complex state predictable;
a dedicated state management solution becomes difficult to avoid.
The key realization is that not all states are the same. Different applications contain different types of state, each with its own lifecycle, complexity, and architectural requirements. This is exactly why the React ecosystem evolved from a single Redux-centric architecture to several specialized state management approaches.
Redux still solves many of these problems extremely well through a centralized store and an explicit data flow. It remains the standard architecture for many enterprise React applications. But it is no longer considered the universal answer for every kind of application state.
Think about these components:
Cross-widget dashboards with decoupled components;
Figma-style interactive canvases;
A multi-step approval workflow.
Should all of them be managed in exactly the same way? Would they really benefit from the same architecture?
This question fundamentally changed how developers think about React state management. Instead of searching for the "best" state management library, modern React applications start by identifying what kind of state they need to manage, and only then choose the approach that fits that problem.
This shift has transformed the ecosystem. Rather than competing over a single "best" solution, today's state management libraries are built around different philosophies of what application state is and how it should be managed.
Source: 2025 State of React survey
Four Ways to Think About State
Let's look at the four major state management philosophies in React and see which libraries represent each mental model.
| Approach | How It Works | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Centralized stores | Treat application state as a single, authoritative database | Redux/RTK, Zustand |
| Reactive systems | You mutate proxies directly, and the library handles derivation and propagation under the hood | MobX, Valtio |
| Atomic state management | Breaks the global store into independent particles | Jotai |
| State machines | UI exists in exactly one predefined state at a time, and transitions follow a defined graph | XState |
The Philosophy of Centralized Stores: Redux and Zustand
The centralized store philosophy treats your application state as a single source of truth. Redux popularized this architecture in React by introducing explicit state updates through actions and reducers. Later, Zustand emerged as a lighter alternative built on the same philosophy but with far less ceremony.
Redux stores the entire application state in a single global store. Components never modify that state directly. Instead, they dispatch actions describing what happened, reducers calculate the next state, and selectors allow components to subscribe only to the slices of data they actually need.
Today, most projects use Redux Toolkit, which simplifies the original architecture with slices, Immer-powered immutable updates, and additional utilities such as RTK Query.
🎯Best for: enterprise applications that prioritize predictability, explicit data flow, and powerful debugging.
Zustand keeps the same centralized-store philosophy while removing much of Redux's ceremony. The store contains both the state itself and the functions for updating it. Components directly call the create function and update the state via the set function. The store hook returns both data and update functions. The result is a much smaller API, without reducers or action types, and without a dependency on React Context, which also helps avoid unnecessary re-renders.Â
🎯Best for: modern React apps that need shared global state without the architectural overhead of Redux.
The Philosophy of Reactive Systems: MobX and ValtioÂ
Unlike centralized stores, reactive libraries automatically detect which pieces of state each component actually uses. Instead of manually writing selectors, developers mutate plain JavaScript objects while the library tracks dependencies and re-renders only the affected components.
MobX is the most well-known implementation of the reactive store philosophy. It uses observables that components subscribe to via the observer wrapper. Stores are typically written as JavaScript classes using makeAutoObservable, and state is updated via direct mutations. While the developer modifies the state, MobX automatically tracks dependencies in the background, making it particularly effective for applications with complex business logic and deeply interconnected domain models.
🎯Best for: data-intensive applications and teams familiar with object-oriented programming.
Valtio follows the same reactive approach, but without the object-oriented layer. It wraps plain JavaScript objects with ES6 Proxies, requiring developers to directly modify state (userStore.data = newData). Components subscribe through the useSnapshot hook and re-render only when the accessed property changes. With its small API and hook-oriented architecture, Valtio is one of the simplest proxy-based reactivity solutions.
🎯Best for: lightweight applications with frequently changing UI state, such as child panels, editors, and design tools.
The Philosophy of Atomic State Management: Jotai
Think of an application not as a single entity with a shared state, but as a collection of small, independent particles (atoms), each with its own state and the ability to freely combine with others. This is the philosophy of atomicity.
Jotai uses a bottom-up architecture, where primitive atoms (numbers, strings, objects, etc.) store values, and derived atoms read those values and derive new states from them. The resulting dependency graph is updated automatically whenever primitive atoms change. Components interact with atoms via useAtom, useAtomValue, or useSetAtom. Because atoms are independent, updating one atom does not affect components subscribed to another. This minimizes unnecessary re-renders without selectors or memoization.Â
🎯Best for: simple interfaces with a small number of external UI elements, such as dashboards and visual editors.
The Philosophy of State Machines: XState
State machines focus on application behavior rather than data storage. Instead of asking what data changed, they define which states are possible and which transitions are allowed.
XState, a JS library, models your application as a state machine. By creating a machine with createMachine, you define the initial state, all possible states, the events that trigger transitions, and any additional workflow context. In React, components are connected via the useMachine hook, which provides the current state along with a send function for dispatching events. By making each transition explicit, XState prevents incorrect UI states and significantly simplifies understanding complex workflows. For example: Draft → Review → Approved → Published.
🎯Best for: multi-step processes such as authentication, checkout flows, approval pipelines, and complex user flows.
Closing Thoughts
Modern React isn't moving away from Redux. It's moving away from the idea that one architecture should solve every state problem.
Centralized stores, reactive systems, atomic state, and state machines each solve different classes of problems. The right choice depends less on which library is trending and more on the type of state your application needs to manage.
| Need | Good choice |
|---|---|
| Enterprise architecture | Redux |
| Lightweight global state | Zustand |
| Complex domain models | MobX |
| Proxy-based reactivity | Valtio |
| Granular UI state | Jotai |
| Multi-step workflows | XState |
If you're integrating complex UI components such as SVAR React Gantt chart, you shouldn't have to redesign your application's architecture. That's why we've published integration guides for Redux, Zustand, MobX, Valtio, Jotai, and XState, so you can use the state management approach that already fits your project.
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