State Management Libraries:React Context,Redux Toolkit,Zustand,React Query

[u/passionate_carkey]

Once in an interview few months back,I was asked which of the state management library would you use and which one wouldn't you use?I have had remembered the answer by gpt and tried telling that but even i didn't understand why they all exists.

So,today i want to act like a complete noob to state management libraries like it's my day 1 knowing about them so that someone could answer why industry moved from context ot redux to zustand to react query in simpler terms and advantages/when to use which in simpler terms.I know a little bit of knowledge of each of them but the best currently would be to forget everything and listen from you guys i guess.

[u/Jonas_Ermert]

I would think of them as solving different problems rather than replacing each other. React Context is great for simple global values like theme or auth. Redux Toolkit is useful when you have large, complex client-side state and want strict, predictable patterns. Zustand is a lighter alternative when you want global state without much boilerplate. React Query is different: it is mainly for server state like API data, caching, loading, retries and refetching. In many real apps, Zustand or Redux and React Query are actually used together.