This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Ayush Maurya
A week ago, an interviewer asked me: Why do we need to manage state in a frontend application? Why can’t HTTP handle it for us?
There can be multiple answers to this, but the simplest one is:
HTTP is a stateless protocol.
What Does Stateless Mean?
Each HTTP request is independent. The server doesn’t know anything about previous requests.
It doesn’t know who is making the request — whether you’re the same user who made the previous one or not.
Why So? Can’t We Make HTTP Stateful?
Technically, we could. But HTTP was intentionally designed to be stateless.
It was made this way to ensure simplicity and scalability.
Why Exactly?
1. Scalability
The server doesn’t store session information between requests.
This makes it easy to load-balance requests across a pool of servers.
When your application grows, you no longer rely on just one server.
If HTTP were stateful, a request would always need to go back to the same server holding that user’s session/token, which limits scalability.
But because it’s stateless, any server can handle any request.
2. Simplicity
In a stateless protocol, each request is self-contained — it carries everything the server needs to understand and respond.
This means:
No need to track sessions or store user-specific context.
Every request must include all relevant data.
Example:
GET /user-profile
Authorization: Bearer <token>
The server does:
- Validates token
- Fetches user info
- Responds
- No memory of this is retained after the response
3. Performance
Stateful systems usually need to keep track of:
- User sessions
- In-progress workflows
- Auth states
- Temp files or cached data
- This consumes memory and resources.
But in stateless systems (like HTTP):
- The server forgets everything after responding.
- There’s no per-user memory cost, which is critical at web scale.
Imagine if a million users log in, and the server has to manage tokens or sessions for each. That’s a massive RAM overhead.
So, Where Does Frontend State Management Come In?
On the frontend, your application deals with dynamic data that changes over time and needs to persist across user interactions.
Without state management, your UI would become chaotic — you’d lose track of what to render and when.
Using a centralized or controlled state (like Signals, RxJS, NgRx, etc.) makes your app easier to debug and maintain.
You know that when state X changes, component Y re-renders.
Real-World Example:
Let’s say a user adds items to a shopping cart.
If you don’t store the cart count on the frontend, what do you do?
Ask the server every single time to get the updated count, even for just rendering the number on the cart icon?
Instead, you get the cart data once (on load) and store it on the frontend.
Efficient, fast, and with no unnecessary network calls.
But Are There Stateful Protocols?
Yes, some protocols are stateful, and for good reason.
- WebSockets
- SMTP (partially stateful)
- FTP, and others.
WebSockets — One You See Often:
- Starts as HTTP (stateless), then upgrades to a persistent, full-duplex connection.
- The server remembers the connection and can push data to the client at any time.
- Used in chat apps, games, stock tickers, and anything requiring real-time communication.
TL;DR:
HTTP is stateless by design — it helps with scalability, simplicity, and performance.
Because of that, managing state on the frontend becomes crucial to maintain a smooth, dynamic, and efficient user experience.
If you found this post helpful or learned something new, feel free to follow for more content like this. I regularly share insights from real-world dev experiences, especially around frontend architecture, performance, and those tricky interview moments we all face.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Ayush Maurya