React State Feels Simple — Until It Doesn't React state management often feels more complex than it needs to be. Selectors, memoization, dependency arrays… we spend a lot of time managing how state updates, not just what the state is. Recently, I tried Valtio — and it made me rethink some of these patterns. The usual problem In many React setups, especially as apps grow, state logic tends to spread: UI state and business state get mixed we add selectors to control updates we optimize re-renders manually we introduce more abstraction to keep things under control It works — but it requires constant orchestration. What felt different with Valtio Valtio takes a different approach based on proxies. Instead of thinking in terms of update triggers and subscriptions, you work directly with state: import { proxy } from ' valtio ' ; const state = proxy ({ count : 0 }); function increment () { state .…