Redux Optimistic Updates Demo

A practical demonstration of classic async updates vs optimistic updates in React with Redux Toolkit.

💡 Inspiration

This project was inspired by TanStack Query's optimistic updates. While TanStack Query provides an excellent implementation of optimistic updates along with many other powerful features, not every application needs a full-featured data management library. This demo shows how to implement optimistic updates using just Redux Toolkit, making it a lighter alternative for smaller applications that only need this specific feature.

🎯 Purpose

This project demonstrates the difference between traditional asynchronous updates and optimistic updates in a web application. It helps developers understand when and how to implement optimistic updates to enhance user experience.

🔄 Understanding the Difference

Classic Async Updates

In traditional async updates, the UI waits for server confirmation before reflecting changes:

// Classic Async Flow
const handleDelete = async (id) => {
  setLoading(true); // 1. Show loading state
  try {
    await api.delete(id); // 2. Wait for server
    updateUI(id); // 3. Update UI after success
  } catch (error) {
    showError(error); // 4. Show error if failed
  }
  setLoading(false); // 5. Hide loading state
};

Optimistic Updates

With optimistic updates, we update the UI immediately and handle failures gracefully:

// Optimistic Update Flow
const handleDelete = async (id) => {
  const previousState = [...items]; // 1. Store current state
  updateUI(id); // 2. Update UI immediately
  try {
    await api.delete(id); // 3. Make API call in background
  } catch (error) {
    revertUI(previousState); // 4. Revert on failure
    showError(error);
  }
};

✨ Features

• CRUD operations with both update patterns
• Real-world API simulation with delays
• Error handling and state reversion
• Clean and modular React components
• TypeScript for type safety
• Redux Toolkit for state management
• Modern UI with dark/light mode support

🛠️ Tech Stack

• React 18
• Redux Toolkit
• TypeScript
• Vite
• React Toastify
• UUID

🚀 Getting Started

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/ZtheLeader/redux-optimistic.git

2. Install dependencies:

   cd redux-optimistic
   npm install

3. Run the development server:

   npm run dev

4. Open http://localhost:5173 in your browser

📖 Usage

The demo includes a simple article management interface where you can:

• Create new articles
• Update article titles
• Delete articles

Each operation has two buttons:

• Regular button: Uses classic async update pattern
• Optimistic button: Uses optimistic update pattern

Try both to see the difference in user experience!

🤔 When to Use Optimistic Updates?

Optimistic updates are best suited for:

• High-confidence operations (likely to succeed)
• Actions that need to feel snappy
• Non-critical data updates
• Good network conditions

Avoid for:

• Critical financial transactions
• Data-dependent operations
• Operations with complex rollback requirements
• High-risk operations

🎨 Project Structure

src/
├── components/         # React components
├── store/             # Redux store and slices
├── hooks/             # Custom React hooks
├── types/             # TypeScript types
├── utils/             # Utility functions
└── api/               # API simulation

🤝 Contributing

Feel free to open issues and pull requests!

📝 License

MIT

👨‍💻 Author

Muhammad Zain - @ZtheLeader