I have been building a small project in React & I am juggling way too much state. Between local state in components, props being passed everywhere & some context I added to avoid prop drilling—it is starting to feel such as a mess.
At what point do you go, “Okay, I need to bring in something such as Redux or Zustand”? Is there a general rule of thumb for when local state is not enough anymore? Or am I just overthinking it and should stick to React basics for now?
I have been going through a reactJS training course & while it covers state management, it does not go deep into when to scale it up. I want to hear from folks who have dealt with this kind of decision in real projects.
How do you keep your component state organized as the app grows?
It sounds like you’re hitting that point where React’s built-in state management feels a bit overwhelming, and that’s totally normal as your app grows.
For most small projects, local state and context can handle things just fine. But once you’re passing props through multiple levels and your app’s state starts getting too messy, it might be time to consider something like Redux or Zustand.
General rule of thumb: If your state management is making the code harder to maintain and debug, it’s time to scale up. If your app is still small and you’re comfortable, you might be overthinking it. However, when the state starts becoming more global (across many components) or more complex, tools like Redux can help organize it better.
If you’re feeling like things are starting to get messy, it’s okay to introduce a state management solution now rather than later. The key is balancing simplicity with scalability.
Hope this helps! Stay confident—you’re doing great!
