React State Management in 2026: Server State and Client State mental model Back when I was a fan of Redux and used it almost for every react app, I dumped API responses straight into slices. Same store as my theme flag, my modal toggle, my redux-form drafts. Having a single source of truth felt like total control, but as apps scaled, managing it all manually became a massive headache. But the real issue wasn't Redux. It was treating remote data and local UI flags as the same kind of state. A keystroke in redux-form could re-render a list backed by API data across the app. Without reselect and memoization everywhere, I would have a really bad time. So I wrote this tutorial covering my time on the original Redux (not RTK Query), the mental model of client vs server state, why the split makes sense, and why TanStack Query and Zustand became so popular for modern React apps. If you're new to state management, hopefully it saves you a few wrong turns.…