Zustand as a Lightweight Alternative

🐻 Zustand as a Lightweight Alternative

While Redux Toolkit is powerful, sometimes all you need is a lightweight, simple, and elegant state management solution. Enter Zustand — a minimalistic global state library that plays incredibly well with modern React, including React 19 and Server Components. Let’s explore why it’s becoming a favorite among developers. ⚡

🌟 What is Zustand?

Zustand (German for “state”) is a small, fast, and scalable state-management library for React. Developed by the creators of Jotai and React-Three-Fiber, Zustand provides a clean API and avoids the boilerplate you find in Redux.

• ✅ No Providers or Context required
• ✅ React 19 compatible
• ✅ Fast and scalable
• ✅ Works with both Client and Server Components

📦 Installing Zustand

npm install zustand

⚙️ Creating a Store

import { create } from 'zustand';

const useStore = create((set) => ({
  count: 0,
  increase: () => set((state) => ({ count: state.count + 1 })),
  reset: () => set({ count: 0 }),
}));

That’s it! You’ve created a fully functional global state — without reducers, actions, or context.

📲 Using the Store in Components

import useStore from './store';

function Counter() {
  const { count, increase, reset } = useStore();

  return (
    <div>
      <h2>Count: {count}</h2>
      <button onClick={increase}>+</button>
      <button onClick={reset}>Reset</button>
    </div>
  );
}

• ✅ No context provider is needed at all
• ✅ Only the state you subscribe to re-renders

🧠 Selective Subscriptions

You can subscribe to just the part of the state you care about — which boosts performance and keeps renders minimal.

const count = useStore((state) => state.count);

⚡ Zustand won’t re-render your component unless that specific piece of state changes.

🌐 Sharing State Across Components

Multiple components can call the same useStore() and access or update shared state.

const Button = () => {
  const increase = useStore((state) => state.increase);
  return <button onClick={increase}>+</button>;
};

const Display = () => {
  const count = useStore((state) => state.count);
  return <h2>{count}</h2>;
};

🔁 Server State & SSR Support

Zustand can be used in React 19 with server-side rendering too. You can even hydrate state into the store during SSR/SSG (in Next.js for example) with no special setup.

🔌 Middleware and DevTools

Need logging, persistence, or Redux DevTools support? Zustand has middleware too!

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

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

✅ When to Use Zustand

• 💡 You want global state with no boilerplate
• 🧼 You prefer a simple function-based API
• ⚛️ You’re building client-heavy apps with React 19
• 📉 You want fast, minimal re-renders

🚫 When NOT to Use Zustand

• ❌ You need structured action/reducer flows like Redux
• ❌ You prefer large team support / advanced debugging tools
• ❌ You need fine-grained control over middleware chains

🚀 Final Thoughts

Zustand is perfect for React developers who want a global state solution without the ceremony of Redux. It’s fast, simple, and intuitive — ideal for modern apps using React 19’s features. Try it out, and enjoy smoother state flows with fewer lines of code. 🐻🔥