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Alex Johnson

Posted 2 days ago

React State Management Redux Context API

Best practices for state management in large React applications

I've been working on a medium-sized React application and I'm starting to feel the pain points of state management. We're currently using React Context for global state and Redux for some specific modules.

As our app grows, I'm wondering what the community considers best practices for:

  • When to use Context vs Redux
  • Managing complex state interactions
  • Performance optimization for state updates
  • State normalization strategies

I've heard about Zustand and Jotai as alternatives, but I'd love to hear from others who have experience with large-scale React applications.

Comments (24)

Sarah Williams

Posted 1 day ago

Redux

Great question! In our large e-commerce platform, we've found that:

  • Use Context for low-frequency updates (like theme, auth)
  • Use Redux for high-frequency state that needs to be accessed in many components
  • Use React Query for server state management

We also implemented a state normalization strategy that significantly improved performance.

Michael Chen

Posted 20 hours ago

I agree with the Context vs Redux approach. We also found that using Redux Toolkit significantly reduces boilerplate and makes state management more maintainable.

Alex Johnson

Original Poster • 18 hours ago

Thanks for the input! We're currently evaluating Redux Toolkit. Do you have any recommendations for middleware that works well with it?

David Kim

Posted 15 hours ago

Don't forget about Zustand! It's been a game-changer for us. Minimal boilerplate and excellent performance. The middleware support is growing rapidly too.

Emma Rodriguez

Posted 22 hours ago

Performance

For performance optimization, we've had great success with:

  • Using React.memo and useMemo judiciously
  • Implementing state splitting to minimize unnecessary re-renders
  • Using selective subscription with Redux (using selectors)
  • Virtualizing long lists

The state splitting approach has been particularly effective - keeping state as granular as possible so components only re-render when their specific state changes.

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