Riverpod offers 6 different kinds of providers, all suited for different use cases.
Knowing when to use each one of them can save you a lot of time and simplify your code. 👍
So let's take a look at them and learn when they are most useful.
Thread. 🧵
Great for accessing dependencies and objects that don’t change.
You may use this to access a repository, a logger, a date-time formatter, or a function that returns the current time.
Don't use this to hold data or state objects that should cause a widget rebuild.
Great for storing simple state objects that can change (such as a counter value).
You can read a StateProvider and update its state inside a button callback.
And you can watch it inside a widget so that it rebuilds when the state changes.
Use this to access a StateNotifier subclass that you have created.
Great for storing more complex widget state, along with the logic for updating it.
Don't use this if you only need to read some async data. That's what FutureProvider is for. 👇
Want to get the result from an API call that returns a Future?
Then just create a FutureProvider, watch it in the build method, and map the resulting AsyncValue (data, loading, error) to your UI.
You can even refresh a FutureProvider to get updated data.
Great for watching a Stream of results from an API and reactively rebuilding the UI.
Doesn't require an explicit refresh to get the updated data (it's realtime by design).
Use cases: auth state changes, realtime database updates, etc.
This is only useful for legacy applications and APIs that store mutable data inside ChangeNotifier subclasses.
Not recommended. For new projects, use StateNotifierProvider instead.
Six different kinds of providers, all suited for different use cases. 🚀
Wanna see more practical examples of when to use them?
Then check out my extensive (and free) guide about Riverpod:
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