xstate VS react-mapbox-gl

XState is a powerful library with comprehensive documentation. Keeping the documentation handy while building your next app with XState will be invaluable.

XState is an excellent library that simplifies the utilization of actors in JavaScript applications. While this article focuses on using React, these principles apply equally well to other frameworks. In fact, they can be implemented anywhere JavaScript is executed.

In this article, I want to share a personal journey of discovery in the world of state management. My path led me to XState, a tool that I believe is the best choice for managing state in modern applications like React, Angular, Vue, and others. This isn't just a professional advice; it's a personal recommendation based on real-world experience.

You add the current user state to a React Context or state management library, read from it on the top bar, and write to it after a user signs in. Done. No big deal, right?

Lastly, I know that I've omitted many great tools like XState, React Query, and SWR. These tools are utilities that are very scalable in their own right, but aren't full replacements for a good state manager.

This is a real concern. I've worked on some Yarn projects where I sometimes forget and accidentally run npm. Although these package managers (I'll call them PMs for short) are interoperable to some degree, there are important differences between these tools, so you should know what you're getting into. Even in seemingly simple projects, results can vary. Here are two reports of things working with one PM, but not another. Moreso, running install once is very different from continuous concurrent use, where you're adding and removing packages and more.

React Mapbox GL A decent library, but not recommended. The original library of Mapbox is well made with great examples, but the rewrite for React is not well maintained. It barely has any examples, and there are not that much resource online. The documentation is not adequate as well. Unless you're an advanced, skilled developer, not the best option.

react-mapbox-gl - ranks second in popularity, has an order of magnitude smaller bundle size and more concise and easy-to-understand api