Member-only story
What is TanStack Query? Detailed guide to powerful state management
Today, we are going to learn TanStack Query (formerly known as React Query).
To understand it perfectly, we are going to use a real-life analogy: A High-End Restaurant.
What is TanStack Query?
In a traditional web app, your frontend (the dining room) asks your backend database (the kitchen) for data (food) using standard fetch requests (waiters).
The problem? Standard waiters aren’t very smart. If five people at a table all ask for the Menu at the same time, a standard waiter walks to the kitchen five separate times. If a customer asks what the “Soup of the Day” is, the waiter goes to the kitchen, asks the chef, comes back, and tells the customer. If another customer asks 10 seconds later, the waiter walks all the way back to the kitchen to ask again. This is slow and overworks the kitchen.
TanStack Query is the ultimate, super-smart Head Waiter / Restaurant Manager. It handles the fetching, caching, synchronizing, and updating of server state automatically.
Let’s clear up the biggest point of confusion for developers learning this tool. To understand it perfectly, we are going to use a real-life analogy: A High-End Restaurant. But, before start let’s understand Axios vs Tanstack Query.
