What's the difference between useContext and Redux ?

In React, useContext and Redux both approaches provide ways to manage and share state across components. Both work and manage global data to share and access from any component present in the application DOM tree, but they have different purposes and use cases.

useContext

useContext is a hook that provides a way to pass data through the component tree without manually passing props down through each nested component. It is designed to share data that can be considered global data for a tree of React components, such as the current authenticated user or theme(e.g. color, paddings, margins, font-sizes).

Syntax:

const Context = useContext(initialValue);

Steps to create the React application:

Step 1: Create React Project

npm create-react-app myreactapp

Step 2: Change your directory and enter your main folder charting as

cd myreactapp

Project Structure:

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Choosing the right state management solution is crucial for your application’s scalability.

Example: In this example, App.js is sending data to component ComC with the help of useContext.

Step to run the application:

Open the terminal and type the following command.

npm start

Output: Open the browser and our project is shown in the URL http://localhost:3000/

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Redux

Redux is a state managing library used in JavaScript apps. It is very popular for React and React-Native. It simply manages the state and data of your application.

Building Parts of Redux

• Action: Actions are JavaScript object that contains information. Actions are the only source of information for the store.
• Reducer: Reducers are the pure functions that contain the logic and calculation that needed to be performed on the state.
• Store: Store is an object which provides the state of the application. This object is accessible with help of the provider in the files of the project.

Step to install Redux: Use this command in project directory

npm i @reduxjs/toolkit react-redux

Project Structure:

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Depemndencies list after installtin redux in package.json

{
 "name": "myreactapp",
 "version": "0.1.0",
 "private": true,
 "dependencies": {
 "@reduxjs/toolkit": "^1.9.7",
 "@testing-library/jest-dom": "^5.17.0",
 "@testing-library/react": "^13.4.0",
 "@testing-library/user-event": "^13.5.0",
 "react": "^18.2.0",
 "react-dom": "^18.2.0",
 "react-redux": "^8.1.3",
 "react-scripts": "5.0.1",
 "web-vitals": "^2.1.4"
 }
}

Example: In this example, we have created two buttons one will increment the value and another will decrement the value. With Redux, we are managing the state.

Step to run the application: Open the terminal and type the following command.

npm start

Output: Open the browser and our project is shown in the URL http://localhost:3000/

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Difference between useContext and Redux