React Data Fetching: Best Practices with TanStack, SWR & RTK Query

Fetching data in React is something every developer does, but the approach you take dramatically affects maintainability, performance, and developer experience.

Classic Approach: useEffect with Async/Await

A common pattern is using useEffect with async/await. It’s simple but quickly becomes limiting:

1import { useState, useEffect } from "react";
2
3interface User {
4  id: number;
5  name:




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Why This Becomes Problematic

• No caching: Every mount triggers a fetch.
• No automatic refetch: Changes on the server require manual updates.
• Error and loading states must be implemented repeatedly.
• Race conditions and memory leaks can occur if the component unmounts during a fetch.
• No built-in invalidation or synchronization across components.

For small demos this is fine. For production apps, it quickly becomes unmanageable.

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Dedicated Libraries: The Better Approach

Dedicated libraries abstract away repetitive fetching logic and add caching, invalidation, background updates, and mutation support. Here’s a rundown of the main options.

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1. TanStack Query (formerly React Query)

TanStack Query is a feature-rich solution for server state management:

1import { useQuery, useMutation, useQueryClient } from "@tanstack/react-query";
2
3interface User {
4  id

Advanced Features:

• Cache invalidation: Automatically or manually invalidate queries after mutations.
• Background refetching: Keeps stale data fresh without blocking UI.
• Pagination & infinite scrolling: Out-of-the-box support.
• Optimistic updates: Update the UI before server confirmation.
• Stale-while-revalidate: Data is instantly available from cache, then updated in background.

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2. SWR (Stale-While-Revalidate)

SWR is lightweight and focuses on simplicity:

1import useSWR from "swr";
2
3interface User {
4  id: number;
5

Key SWR Features:

• Automatic caching and revalidation.
• Optimistic UI with mutate().
• Focus tracking: refetches when the tab/window comes into focus.
• Lightweight compared to TanStack Query.

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3. RTK Query (Redux Toolkit Query)

RTK Query is perfect if your project already uses Redux:

1// apiSlice.ts
2import { createApi, fetchBaseQuery } from "@reduxjs/toolkit/query/react";
3
4interface User {

Why RTK Query is powerful:

• Generates hooks automatically from endpoints.
• Integrates directly with Redux store.
• Automatic cache invalidation with invalidatesTags.
• Built-in support for optimistic updates and polling.

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Takeaways

• useEffect + fetch works for small apps but doesn’t scale.
• Dedicated libraries handle caching, background refetching, invalidation, optimistic updates, and mutations.
• Choice of library depends on your project:
  • TanStack Query: Full-featured, framework-agnostic.
  • SWR: Lightweight, simple, excellent for Next.js.
  • RTK Query: Best for projects already using Redux.

Switching from useEffect to a dedicated solution reduces boilerplate, makes your components simpler, and gives your users a faster, more consistent experience.