Difference between akita store and redux toolkit in react.js

 

Difference Between Akita Store and Redux Toolkit in React.js

Both Akita Store and Redux Toolkit are state management libraries, and they aim to simplify handling state in JavaScript applications like React. However, they differ in design philosophy, implementation, and the features they offer. Below is a comparison of Akita and Redux Toolkit in the context of React.js applications.

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1. Core Concept

Akita Store:

• Entity-Based Store: Akita is designed around the concept of entities and stores. It is more declarative, focusing on how data is structured and how state is organized.
• Query & Store: Akita introduces the concepts of Store, Query, and Service:
  • Store: Manages state and handles updates.
  • Query: Used to query the state and expose selectors.
  • Service: Used to encapsulate logic for interacting with the store, typically for side effects.
• Akita encourages managing entities (e.g., Todo lists, Users) by providing structured APIs for CRUD operations. It also provides tools for handling caching, pagination, and state changes in a more declarative manner.

Redux Toolkit:

• Action-Reducer-Based Store: Redux Toolkit is built around the action and reducer pattern. It simplifies the use of Redux by providing utilities to reduce boilerplate.

• Slicing State: Redux Toolkit encourages organizing state into slices (using createSlice), where each slice has its actions and reducers.

• Redux Toolkit is based on global store management, and most state updates happen through dispatching actions, which invoke reducers that modify the state.

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2. Setup and Boilerplate

Akita Store:

• Less Boilerplate: Akita is known for its minimal setup and boilerplate. It automatically handles the creation of stores, queries, and updates.
• Declarative API: The API in Akita is more declarative, which reduces the need for setting up additional middlewares or actions.

Example (Akita store setup):

import { createStore, Store } from '@datorama/akita';

export class TodoStore extends Store {
  constructor() {
    super({ todos: [] });
  }
}

Redux Toolkit:

• More Boilerplate: Redux requires you to define reducers, actions, and then combine them into a store. Redux Toolkit simplifies this, but it still involves setting up slices, reducers, and dispatching actions.
• CreateSlice: Redux Toolkit uses the createSlice utility to reduce the boilerplate of defining actions and reducers in separate files.

Example (Redux Toolkit setup):

import { createSlice, configureStore } from '@reduxjs/toolkit';

const todoSlice = createSlice({
  name: 'todos',
  initialState: { todos: [] },
  reducers: {
    addTodo: (state, action) => {
      state.todos.push(action.payload);
    },
  },
});

const store = configureStore({
  reducer: {
    todos: todoSlice.reducer,
  },
});

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3. Data Structure and Management

Akita Store:

• Entity Store Pattern: Akita's main strength lies in handling entities, which are data models with unique identifiers. The store keeps data normalized, allowing for better querying and updates.
• State Mutability: Akita uses immutable updates (via immer), but it allows a more direct way of handling entities and their relationships in the store.

Redux Toolkit:

• Standard State: Redux does not enforce any particular data structure. You manage your state directly as objects or arrays.
• State Mutability: Redux requires you to manually ensure that your state remains immutable, although Redux Toolkit uses Immer internally, which allows you to write "mutative" logic in reducers that is safely converted to immutable updates.

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4. Querying and Selecting State

Akita Store:

• Query-Based: Akita provides a Query class that allows querying and selecting parts of the state in a more efficient and declarative way. Queries are separated from the store itself, which allows for cleaner code and encapsulation.
• Selectors: You define query selectors that can be reused across components.

Example (Akita Query):

import { Query } from '@datorama/akita';

export class TodoQuery extends Query {
  constructor(store) {
    super(store);
  }

  getTodos() {
    return this.select('todos');
  }
}

Redux Toolkit:

• Selectors: Redux Toolkit also allows defining selectors, but it typically relies on useSelector for extracting state in components. The useSelector hook can be used to select parts of the state by accessing the Redux store directly.

Example (Redux Selector):

import { useSelector } from 'react-redux';

const todos = useSelector(state => state.todos.todos);

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5. Performance and Scalability

Akita Store:

• Optimized for Large State: Akita is designed to efficiently handle large and complex states (especially with multiple entities). It offers lazy loading and pagination out of the box for entity stores.
• Memory Efficient: Akita’s query system is optimized for performance, as it only re-renders components when the relevant part of the state changes.

Redux Toolkit:

• Scalable with Middleware: Redux Toolkit can also scale well with large applications, but you will need to integrate additional tools like Redux DevTools and Thunk middleware for side-effects (though redux-thunk is included by default in Redux Toolkit).
• State Normalization: While Redux Toolkit supports state normalization (through libraries like normalizr), it doesn’t automatically handle it like Akita does. You have to implement normalization yourself.

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6. State Updates and Side Effects

Akita Store:

• No Explicit Actions: Akita doesn’t require dispatching actions to update state. You can directly call methods on the store (like update) to update the state.
• Side Effects: Akita provides ways to handle side effects (like async calls) using services, which encapsulate any external logic.

Redux Toolkit:

• Action Dispatching: Redux Toolkit relies heavily on actions to modify the state. You dispatch actions (which trigger reducers) to update the state.
• Side Effects with Thunks: For handling side effects (like API calls), Redux Toolkit uses redux-thunk (which is included by default). This allows asynchronous actions in the form of functions.

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7. Learning Curve

Akita Store:

• Easier for Complex State: Akita's query-based architecture and entities model make it easier to manage complex, large-scale state with relationships between entities. The API is more declarative, so it has a shallower learning curve.
• Less Boilerplate: Akita reduces boilerplate and focuses more on the organization of data.

Redux Toolkit:

• Widely Known: Redux Toolkit is more popular in the React ecosystem, and many developers are familiar with the action-reducer pattern.
• More Boilerplate: Redux requires more setup (though Redux Toolkit reduces it significantly), and learning about dispatch, reducers, and action creators might take longer for newcomers.

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8. Ecosystem

Akita Store:

• Limited Ecosystem: While Akita works well with React, it is more popular in Angular applications. There are fewer resources and a smaller community compared to Redux.

Redux Toolkit:

• Large Ecosystem: Redux has a vast ecosystem with a lot of middleware, extensions, and tools. The Redux DevTools, redux-thunk, and redux-saga provide a complete ecosystem for managing complex state and side effects.

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Summary:

Feature	Akita Store	Redux Toolkit
State Management	Entity-based, query and store system	Action-reducer based
Setup and Boilerplate	Less boilerplate, simpler setup	More setup, but less than vanilla Redux
Querying and Selectors	Uses Query class for efficient querying	Uses useSelector for selecting state
Data Structure	Focused on entities and state normalization	Focuses on global state management
Side Effects	Handled through services	Handled with redux-thunk or redux-saga
Performance	Optimized for large-scale apps with entities	Scales well with proper middleware
Learning Curve	Shallow learning curve, declarative	Steeper learning curve with action-reducer pattern
Ecosystem	Smaller, less resources	Larger, extensive ecosystem and tools

In summary:

• Akita is ideal for large applications with complex state management requirements, especially if you need to manage entities with relationships and optimize for performance.
• Redux Toolkit is ideal for applications where you prefer a more familiar action-reducer pattern, and the ecosystem of tools and libraries around Redux is an advantage for many React developers.