[applecrazy]

The main issue is that React needs state passed around as props otherwise, which becomes unweieldy if you didn’t have a global state.

I believe it also makes debugging state issues easier if you have a single source of truth.

Edit: this is somewhat alleviated by the introduction of the React Context API[1], which provides some cleaner functionality but requires quite a few extra components in the render tree.

[1]: https://reactjs.org/docs/context.html

[krishanath]

>> state passed around as props

Context provides a way to pass data through the component tree without having to pass props down manually at every level. https://reactjs.org/docs/context.html

>> single source of truth

Often, several components need to reflect the same changing data. We recommend lifting the shared state up to their closest common ancestor. https://reactjs.org/docs/lifting-state-up.html

[kabes]

Note that Context is a pretty new API (1), way newer than most state management libraries. Before that it quickly became unmanageable to lift state up and pass props down all the way.

[1] https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#1...

[applecrazy]

I guess then I have no idea why Redux is so widely used, given now the Context API exists.

[acemarke]

Multiple reasons.

First, Redux has been around since 2015 (and won the "Flux Wars" that had been going on for a year before that), whereas the new `createContext` API only came out a few months ago.

Second, Redux provides a lot more guidance around how you're supposed to structure your application. Context only provides a method for making values available to deeply nested components in the tree.

Third, the Redux ecosystem is huge, with addons available for effectively any use case you can think of. [0]

Please see my post "Redux - Not Dead Yet!" [1] and Dave Ceddia's post "Redux vs the React Context API" [2] for more details on how they relate.

[0] https://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/2017/09/presentation-might...

[1] https://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/2018/03/redux-not-dead-yet...

[2] https://daveceddia.com/context-api-vs-redux/

[tptacek]

Redux is overused, because of a meme that suggests that the de facto standard React "stack" is React, Redux, and React-Router. That's just a meme (Dan Abramov even wrote a blog post debunking it!) but some memes are hard to fight.

[alexkoeh]

Redux the library is not "state management for react". It's more of a concept that gives you a predictable structure around how state changes over time.

I think what you're thinking of is specifically the `react-redux` library which gave a nice abstraction to the old & clunky React context API. The new context API was released with React 16.3 (which came out March of this year).

[mikewhy]

The new Context API can't be used in lifecycle methods, which is a bit of a letdown.

[beaconstudios]

the new Context API replaces the `connect()`/`<Provider />` functionality, but not the flux data flow model. Nor does it provide a replacement for the surrounding redux ecosystem - so there's still plenty of benefit to using redux.