Jotai

Jotai is atomic state management that makes React's useState feel like a global variable hack. Each piece of state is an "atom" — composable, subscribable, and surgically re-renders only components that actually use it. If Zustand is the simple global store, Jotai is the precise scalpel.

Use Jotai when your state graph is complex — think derived values, async dependencies, or fine-grained subscriptions where Zustand's selector pattern gets awkward. Zustand (same team, pmndrs) is simpler and more popular with 42K+ stars. Redux Toolkit is the enterprise standard. Recoil (Meta) pioneered atoms but development has stalled since 2022.

The catch: Jotai's atom model is powerful but mentally different from flux-style stores. Debugging is harder — there's no single store to inspect like Redux DevTools. And at 21K stars versus Zustand's 42K, the ecosystem is thinner. For most indie projects, Zustand plus TanStack Query covers 95% of state needs with less conceptual overhead.