The State of stan-js - Inactive Maintenance and Future Prospects

[shahreazebd]

Hey everyone,

I’ve recently been digging into stan-js, a lightweight React state management library that caught my attention for its simplicity and minimalistic approach. For those unfamiliar, stan-js offers a straightforward way to manage state in React apps without the boilerplate of some larger libraries like Redux. However, I noticed that the project hasn’t seen any updates in a while—its GitHub repo shows no recent commits, and it seems to be in a state of inactive maintenance.

I wanted to start this discussion to hear from the community:

1. Has anyone used stan-js in a production app recently? How has it held up with modern React (e.g., hooks, concurrent rendering)?
2. What do you think about relying on a library that’s no longer actively maintained? Are there risks worth worrying about, or is its simplicity enough to keep it viable?
3. Alternatives: For those who’ve moved on, what did you switch to (e.g., Zustand, Jotai, Recoil, or even just Context + useReducer)? Why?

Personally, I like the idea of a no-frills state manager, but I’m hesitant to adopt something that might not evolve with React’s ecosystem. On the flip side, if it “just works” for smaller projects, maybe it doesn’t need constant updates. What’s your take?

Looking forward to your thoughts, experiences, or even wild ideas about where stan-js could go from here!

Cheers

[Brentlok]

Hi @shahreazebd, I'm the creator of this library, not just a community member, and I wanted to address a few points:

1. We actively use stan-js in all our production applications, including React, React Native, and Next.js projects.
2. The library hasn't had recent commits because we're satisfied with its current stability and functionality. We haven't encountered any bugs, it supports React 19, and we don't have immediate plans for new features. Many state management libraries are in a similar maintenance phase; for example, Zustand's latest major release included no new features, primarily focusing on dropping support for older features and updating documentation.

[shahreazebd]

Thanks for the update! Good to know that stan-js is stable, bug-free, and used in production. Now I can use it with peace. An awesome lib. Thanks for creating it. Thank You.