Why Defaulting to Global State Management Often Creates More Problems Than It Solves

A software developer reflects on three years of over-relying on global state management tools like Redux and Zustand for every data-sharing need in frontend applications. The core mistake, they argue, is conflating 'shared state' with 'global state,' which leads to tightly coupled components, harder testing, and unnecessary re-renders. The developer now follows a decision hierarchy — local state, lifted state, server cache, then global state — before deciding where data should live. A key insight is that API responses are better treated as a server cache using dedicated tools, which can eliminate up to 60 percent of global state code. The advice concludes that simpler, more targeted state management is more maintainable and scalable than defaulting to a global store.