Server Components with revalidatePath: A New Era to Replace State Management in Next.js

In web development, managing state can be complex.
Traditional libraries like Redux and Zustand have been used to keep different parts of an app in sync. But with the introduction of Server Components and features like Next.js’s revalidatePath, managing state is becoming simpler and more efficient by moving the process to the server.

This article delves into how Server Components, combined with revalidatePath, can replace traditional client-side state management solutions like Redux and Zustand. Through a practical example, we'll demonstrate how these tools simplify the way state is managed, reducing the need for intricate client-side logic.

The State Management Challenge

Before diving into solutions, let’s revisit the common challenges associated with traditional state management:

1. Data Syncing: Maintaining consistent UI representation across different components with a shared application state becomes convoluted, especially in complex applications.
2. Performance Overhead: State management libraries, like Redux, often introduce additional boilerplate code for actions, reducers, stores, and middleware. This can impact performance, particularly for large-scale applications.
3. Client-Side Complexity: Managing state on the client side involves dealing with race conditions, loading states, error handling, and numerous asynchronous requests — a complexity that can make code maintenance difficult.
4. Component Re-renders: Managing UI updates based on state changes can be tricky. Often, developers resort to deep prop drilling or excessive use of context providers, leading to unnecessary re-renders.

How Redux and Zustand Tackle State Management

Redux

Redux is a widely used state management library for managing application-wide state in JavaScript applications. It follows a unidirectional data flow:

1. Actions: User interactions or other events trigger actions to update the state.
2. Reducers: Reducers, upon receiving actions, modify the application state.
3. Store: The state is stored in a central, global store accessible by components.

While powerful, Redux introduces significant boilerplate code. Each state update requires defining actions, reducers, and sometimes middleware to handle side effects.

Zustand

Zustand is a lightweight alternative to Redux, offering a simpler API for state management:

1. Store Creation: Zustand allows easy store creation using a create function.
2. State Update: Components can directly read and update state via hooks, eliminating the need for actions or reducers.

Zustand boasts a minimal setup and API. However, managing state on the client side remains a concern, potentially complicating complex applications with shared state, asynchronous logic, and consistency requirements.

Server Components: A New State Management Paradigm

Server Components (introduced in React and Next.js) represent a transformative approach to building React applications. Here, component rendering happens server-side, rather than client-side. Data fetching and component rendering take place on the server, and only the final HTML is delivered to the client.

This implies that data can be pre-fetched and rendered on the server without additional client-side logic like state management tools. It reduces the complexity of client-side code and enhances data fetching predictability and efficiency.

Enter revalidatePath in Next.js

Next.js introduces a function called revalidatePath that enables developers to invalidate and re-fetch data on the server for a specific route when the underlying data changes. This functionality proves particularly useful for ensuring data consistency without relying on client-side state management tools.

By handling data revalidation and re-fetching automatically at the server level, revalidatePath minimizes the need for client-side logic, reducing the dependence on tools like Redux and Zustand.

How Server Components with revalidatePath Replace Redux and Zustand

In this section, we’ll illustrate how Server Components and revalidatePath can handle state management traditionally done with Redux and Zustand, taking a simple blog application as an example.

Example: A Blog App with Server Components vs Redux and Zustand

1. Blog App with Redux

A typical React app using Redux would have a global store to manage blog post data. Here’s how it might look:

Redux Example:

Redux Store:

import { createStore } from 'redux';

// Initial State
const initialState = {
  posts: [],
};

// Actions
const SET_POSTS = 'SET_POSTS';

// Reducers
function reducer(state = initialState, action) {
  switch (action.type) {
    case SET_POSTS:
      return { ...state, posts: action.payload };
    default:
      return state;
  }
}

// Action Creators
export function

2. Blog App with Zustand

Zustand offers a simpler, hook-based way to manage the same blog posts.

Zustand Example:

Store:

import create from 'zustand';

const useStore = create((set) => ({
  posts: [],
  setPosts: (posts) => set({ posts }),
}));

export default useStore;

Component with Zustand:

import { useEffect } from 'react';
import useStore from './store';

function BlogPosts() {
  const { posts, setPosts } = useStore();

useEffect(() => {
    fetch('/api/posts')
      .then((res) => res.json())
      .then((data) => setPosts(data));
  }, [setPosts]);

return (
    <div>
      {posts.map((post) => (
        <div key={post.id}>{post.title}</div>
      ))}
    </div>
  );
}

With Zustand, state management is more direct. The setPosts function updates the posts in the store, which is then reflected in the component. This approach is cleaner than Redux but still requires managing state client-side.

3. App with Server Components and revalidatePath

Now, let’s take the same blog app and refactor it using Server Components and Next.js’s revalidatePath to handle the data fetching and revalidation.

Server Component Example:

Server Component for Blog Posts:

import { revalidatePath } from 'next/cache';

export default async function BlogPosts() {
  // Fetch posts from the server
  const res = await fetch('https://api.example.com/posts');
  const posts = await res.json();

// Revalidate the path after a change
  revalidatePath('/posts');

return (
    <div>
      {posts.map((post) => (
        <div key={post.id}>{post.title}</div>
      ))}
    </div>
  );
}

In this example, BlogPosts is a Server Component that fetches the data on the server and sends the rendered HTML to the client. When a change is made (like creating or updating a post), revalidatePath('/posts') tells Next.js to re-fetch and re-render the page, ensuring that the UI is always up to date.

Interested in learning about advanced techniques for updating multiple APIs? Check out this article.