React vs Vue Data Fetching: TanStack Query vs Pinia Colada [2026]

React and Vue teams keep circling back to the same argument: which framework wins? But by August 2026, the sharper question for anyone shipping AI-assisted, data-heavy frontends is different. It’s not React vs Vue anymore. It’s how you fetch, cache, and sync server data inside whichever framework you already picked. That’s where TanStack Query and Pinia Colada come in, and getting the setup wrong costs you stale UIs, duplicate network calls, and race conditions that only show up in production.

This tutorial walks through building the same data-fetching layer twice: once in React with @tanstack/[email protected], the current release on the npm registry as of this writing, and once in Vue with both @tanstack/[email protected] and the newer Vue-native alternative, Pinia Colada, currently at version 1.4.2. By the end you’ll have two working projects, a side-by-side comparison of the caching APIs, and a clear answer for which stack fits your team in 2026.

·

Google · Preferred Sources

Don't miss new tech stories on Google

Add Tech Insider once in the Google app and our stories appear in your news suggestions.

Add Now

Why Data Fetching, Not Just the Framework, Decides Your Stack in 2026

For years, the React vs Vue debate centered on syntax, bundle size, and job market share. React still holds roughly 42% of the JavaScript framework market among production websites, with Vue sitting around 8-10%, according to framework usage tracking cited across multiple 2026 comparison reports. That gap matters less than it used to for a simple reason: most AI-integrated apps now spend more engineering time on server-state management than on component architecture.

Chat interfaces, RAG pipelines, streaming AI suggestions, and agentic workflows all hammer your API layer with frequent, overlapping requests. Without a dedicated caching library, you end up hand-rolling loading states, deduplication logic, and stale-data invalidation in every component. TanStack Query solved this for React years ago and now ships an equally capable Vue integration. Pinia Colada, built for the Vue ecosystem, offers a Vue-native alternative that skips the separate query client in favor of wiring caching directly through Pinia, Vue’s official state management library.

Both @tanstack/react-query and @tanstack/vue-query are on the same 5.102.8 release as of late August 2026, meaning React and Vue developers now have access to identical v5 feature parity: stale-while-revalidate caching, background refetching, optimistic updates, and query invalidation. The real decision isn’t which library is more powerful. It’s which mental model fits your existing state management choices, and this guide gives you working code for all three paths.

There’s also a practical reason this matters more in 2026 than it did a couple of years ago. AI coding assistants like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Claude Code now generate a large share of the boilerplate around data fetching, and they’re far more consistent producing correct TanStack Query code than hand-rolled fetch-and-state-array patterns, simply because the library’s conventions are heavily represented in public training data. Teams that standardize on one of these libraries early get more reliable AI-generated pull requests for CRUD screens, list views, and form submissions, which compounds as your app grows past a handful of API calls.

Prerequisites and Versions You’ll Need

Before starting, confirm you have the following installed. Version mismatches are the number one cause of confusing errors when setting up TanStack Query or Pinia Colada, so check each one with the commands shown.

Tool	Minimum Version	Check Command	Notes
Node.js	20.19 LTS or newer	node -v	Required for modern Vite’s ESM-only tooling
npm / pnpm	npm 10.x or pnpm 9.x	npm -v	pnpm recommended for monorepo-style demos
React	19.2.8	npm list react	Current stable release on the npm registry
Vue	3.5.42	npm list vue	Vapor Mode features are opt-in per component
@tanstack/react-query	5.102.8	npm list @tanstack/react-query	Latest npm release as of this writing
@tanstack/vue-query	5.102.8	npm list @tanstack/vue-query	Same release cadence as the React package
@pinia/colada	1.4.2	npm list @pinia/colada	Requires Pinia 4.x already installed
Pinia	4.0.3	npm list pinia	Vue’s official state management library
Vite	8.2.2	npm list vite	Used as the build tool for both demo apps

You’ll also need a free API to fetch from for testing. This tutorial uses a public JSON placeholder API so you can follow along without setting up a backend. Basic familiarity with hooks (React) or composables (Vue) is assumed, but no prior TanStack Query or Pinia experience is required.

Step 1: Scaffold the React Project With Vite

Start with the React side. Vite (currently at major version 8) remains the fastest way to bootstrap a React project in 2026, with cold starts consistently faster than webpack-based alternatives.

npm create vite@latest react-query-demo -- --template react-ts
cd react-query-demo
npm install
npm install @tanstack/react-query @tanstack/react-query-devtools

The devtools package is optional but strongly recommended while you’re learning the caching behavior. It renders a floating panel showing every query’s status, cache key, and staleness in real time, which saves hours of console.log debugging.

Step 2: Wire Up the QueryClient in React

TanStack Query works by wrapping your app in a QueryClientProvider. Every component inside that provider can then call useQuery or useMutation without prop-drilling a client reference.

// src/main.tsx
import { StrictMode } from 'react'
import { createRoot } from 'react-dom/client'
import { QueryClient, QueryClientProvider } from '@tanstack/react-query'
import { ReactQueryDevtools } from '@tanstack/react-query-devtools'
import App from './App'

const queryClient = new QueryClient({
  defaultOptions: {
    queries: {
      staleTime: 60 * 1000,
      retry: 2,
      refetchOnWindowFocus: false,
    },
  },
})

createRoot(document.getElementById('root')!).render(
  <StrictMode>
    <QueryClientProvider client={queryClient}>
      <App />
      <ReactQueryDevtools initialIsOpen={false} />
    </QueryClientProvider>
  </StrictMode>
)

The staleTime setting is the single most important config value in this whole file. It controls how long a fetched result is considered fresh before TanStack Query will refetch it in the background. Setting it too low (or leaving it at the default of zero) means every component mount triggers a network call, even if the data was just fetched seconds earlier elsewhere in the app.

Step 3: Write Your First useQuery Hook

Now build a component that fetches a list of posts and displays loading, error, and success states, the three states every data-fetching UI needs to handle.

// src/PostList.tsx
import { useQuery } from '@tanstack/react-query'

interface Post {
  id: number
  title: string
  body: string
}

async function fetchPosts(): Promise<Post[]> {
  const res = await fetch('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts?_limit=10')
  if (!res.ok) throw new Error('Failed to fetch posts')
  return res.json()
}

export function PostList() {
  const { data, isPending, isError, error } = useQuery({
    queryKey: ['posts'],
    queryFn: fetchPosts,
  })

  if (isPending) return <p>Loading posts...</p>
  if (isError) return <p>Error: {error.message}</p>

  return (
    <ul>
      {data.map((post) => (
        <li key={post.id}>{post.title}</li>
      ))}
    </ul>
  )
}

The queryKey array is what TanStack Query uses to identify, cache, and deduplicate this specific request. If you render PostList in five places on the same page, only one network request fires; the other four components read from cache instantly.

Step 4: Add Mutations for Writes

Fetching is half the story. Real apps also need to create, update, and delete data, then keep the UI in sync afterward. TanStack Query handles this with useMutation combined with cache invalidation.

// src/CreatePost.tsx
import { useMutation, useQueryClient } from '@tanstack/react-query'
import { useState } from 'react'

async function createPost(title: string) {
  const res = await fetch('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
    body: JSON.stringify({ title, body: '', userId: 1 }),
  })
  return res.json()
}

export function CreatePost() {
  const [title, setTitle] = useState('')
  const queryClient = useQueryClient()

  const mutation = useMutation({
    mutationFn: createPost,
    onSuccess: () => {
      queryClient.invalidateQueries({ queryKey: ['posts'] })
    },
  })

  return (
    <form onSubmit={(e) => { e.preventDefault(); mutation.mutate(title) }}>
      <input value={title} onChange={(e) => setTitle(e.target.value)} />
      <button type="submit" disabled={mutation.isPending}>
        {mutation.isPending ? 'Saving...' : 'Add Post'}
      </button>
    </form>
  )
}

Calling invalidateQueries on the ['posts'] key tells TanStack Query that cached data under that key is now stale, triggering an automatic background refetch anywhere it’s used. This is the pattern that eliminates the “did my save actually work” bugs common in apps that manage server state with plain useState and useEffect.

Step 5: Scaffold the Vue Project With Vite

Switch to the Vue side now. The scaffolding step is nearly identical, just with a different template flag.

npm create vite@latest vue-query-demo -- --template vue-ts
cd vue-query-demo
npm install
npm install @tanstack/vue-query pinia

Installing Pinia alongside @tanstack/vue-query here is intentional. Even if you go the TanStack route for server state, most Vue apps still need Pinia for client-only state like UI toggles, form drafts, or auth tokens. You’ll swap this out for @pinia/colada later in Step 9 to compare the two approaches directly.

Step 6: Register the VueQueryPlugin

Vue’s plugin system replaces React’s context provider pattern. Registering VueQueryPlugin on the app instance makes useQuery available in every component, the same way QueryClientProvider does in React.

// src/main.ts
import { createApp } from 'vue'
import { createPinia } from 'pinia'
import { VueQueryPlugin, QueryClient } from '@tanstack/vue-query'
import App from './App.vue'

const queryClient = new QueryClient({
  defaultOptions: {
    queries: {
      staleTime: 60 * 1000,
      retry: 2,
    },
  },
})

const app = createApp(App)
app.use(createPinia())
app.use(VueQueryPlugin, { queryClient })
app.mount('#app')

Notice the default options object is structurally identical to the React version. This is the payoff of TanStack Query’s framework-agnostic core: the caching engine underneath is shared, only the reactive bindings differ between React hooks and Vue composables.

Step 7: Build the Same PostList Component in Vue

Now recreate the post list from Step 3, this time as a Vue single-file component using the Composition API.

<!-- src/PostList.vue -->
<script setup lang="ts">
import { useQuery } from '@tanstack/vue-query'

interface Post {
  id: number
  title: string
}

async function fetchPosts(): Promise<Post[]> {
  const res = await fetch('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts?_limit=10')
  if (!res.ok) throw new Error('Failed to fetch posts')
  return res.json()
}

const { data, isPending, isError, error } = useQuery({
  queryKey: ['posts'],
  queryFn: fetchPosts,
})
</script>

<template>
  <p v-if="isPending">Loading posts...</p>
  <p v-else-if="isError">Error: {{ error?.message }}</p>
  <ul v-else>
    <li v-for="post in data" :key="post.id">{{ post.title }}</li>
  </ul>
</template>

The API surface reads almost line-for-line the same as React’s useQuery. The main difference is that Vue’s data, isPending, and isError are refs, unwrapped automatically in the template, whereas React returns plain values re-evaluated on every render.

Step 8: Add a Mutation in Vue With Cache Invalidation

Mirror the React mutation example from Step 4 using Vue Query’s useMutation and useQueryClient.

<!-- src/CreatePost.vue -->
<script setup lang="ts">
import { ref } from 'vue'
import { useMutation, useQueryClient } from '@tanstack/vue-query'

const title = ref('')
const queryClient = useQueryClient()

const { mutate, isPending } = useMutation({
  mutationFn: async (newTitle: string) => {
    const res = await fetch('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts', {
      method: 'POST',
      headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
      body: JSON.stringify({ title: newTitle, body: '', userId: 1 }),
    })
    return res.json()
  },
  onSuccess: () => {
    queryClient.invalidateQueries({ queryKey: ['posts'] })
  },
})
</script>

<template>
  <form @submit.prevent="mutate(title)">
    <input v-model="title" />
    <button type="submit" :disabled="isPending">
      {{ isPending ? 'Saving...' : 'Add Post' }}
    </button>
  </form>
</template>

At this point, both apps have full read/write data-fetching layers built on the same underlying library. If your team is already committed to Vue Query, you could stop here. But the Vue ecosystem has a second, Vue-native option worth testing before you lock in a decision.

Step 9: Set Up Pinia Colada as a Vue-Native Alternative

Pinia Colada takes a different architectural approach. Instead of a separate query client sitting alongside your app’s state, it wires caching directly into Pinia stores, meaning your server-state and client-state live under the same mental model. Install it alongside your existing Pinia setup.

npm install @pinia/colada

// src/main.ts
import { createApp } from 'vue'
import { createPinia } from 'pinia'
import { PiniaColada } from '@pinia/colada'
import App from './App.vue'

const app = createApp(App)
const pinia = createPinia()
app.use(pinia)
app.use(PiniaColada, {})
app.mount('#app')

Note that PiniaColada is installed as a Pinia plugin, not a standalone provider. This is the core philosophical difference: Vue Query treats caching as its own subsystem, while Pinia Colada treats it as an extension of the state management layer you’re probably already using.

Step 10: Write the Same Query With Pinia Colada

Pinia Colada’s useQuery composable looks deliberately similar to TanStack’s, easing the migration path in either direction.

<!-- src/PostListColada.vue -->
<script setup lang="ts">
import { useQuery } from '@pinia/colada'

interface Post {
  id: number
  title: string
}

async function fetchPosts(): Promise<Post[]> {
  const res = await fetch('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts?_limit=10')
  if (!res.ok) throw new Error('Failed to fetch posts')
  return res.json()
}

const { data, isLoading, error } = useQuery({
  key: ['posts'],
  query: fetchPosts,
})
</script>

<template>
  <p v-if="isLoading">Loading posts...</p>
  <p v-else-if="error">Error: {{ error.message }}</p>
  <ul v-else>
    <li v-for="post in data" :key="post.id">{{ post.title }}</li>
  </ul>
</template>

The naming differs slightly: key instead of queryKey, query instead of queryFn, and isLoading instead of isPending. Functionally the two behave the same way, both dedupe requests by key and cache results between component instances. The official migration documentation from the Pinia Colada team maps these renamed options directly against Vue Query’s API for teams porting existing code.

Step 11: Compare Mutations and Cache Invalidation Across All Three

With all three implementations built, this is the moment to compare their mutation and invalidation syntax directly. The table below lines up the exact API differences you’ll hit while porting code between them.

Feature	@tanstack/react-query	@tanstack/vue-query	@pinia/colada
Provider setup	QueryClientProvider	app.use(VueQueryPlugin)	app.use(PiniaColada)
Fetch hook/composable	useQuery	useQuery	useQuery
Cache identifier param	queryKey	queryKey	key
Fetch function param	queryFn	queryFn	query
Loading state field	isPending	isPending	isLoading
Write hook	useMutation	useMutation	useMutation
Cache invalidation	invalidateQueries	invalidateQueries	invalidateQueries (via Pinia store)
Underlying state layer	Standalone query client	Standalone query client	Pinia store (unified with app state)
Weekly npm downloads (relative)	Highest of the three	Moderate, mirrors React adoption ratio	Smaller but actively growing per TanStack’s own npm stats tracker

The practical takeaway: if your Vue app already leans heavily on Pinia for everything else, Pinia Colada removes an entire second state system from your dependency tree. If your team ports code between React and Vue codebases regularly, or you value having the exact same caching semantics on both sides, sticking with the TanStack family (React Query and Vue Query) minimizes the mental context-switch.

Step 12: Compare Bundle Size and Install Footprint

Dependency weight matters more once an app scales past a demo, especially on mobile networks where every extra kilobyte of JavaScript delays interactivity. Pulling the unpacked package sizes directly from the npm registry gives a clean, apples-to-apples view of what each library actually adds to your node_modules footprint before tree-shaking.

Package	Version Checked	Unpacked Size (npm registry)	Peer Dependencies
@tanstack/react-query	5.102.8	~855 KB unpacked (includes source maps and types)	react
@tanstack/vue-query	5.102.8	Comparable footprint to the React package, shared query-core internals	vue
@pinia/colada	1.4.2	~320 KB unpacked	pinia, vue
pinia	4.0.3	~18 KB gzipped runtime bundle	vue

The unpacked npm figures include TypeScript type declarations and source maps that never ship to the browser, so the real production bundle impact is much smaller for all three, typically in the 10-15 KB gzipped range for the query layer itself. The meaningful difference isn’t raw kilobytes, it’s dependency count: choosing Pinia Colada means you’re only adding one new runtime dependency (Colada itself) on top of Pinia you likely already have installed, while adopting Vue Query on a project with no existing Pinia usage means introducing an entirely separate state system alongside whatever you use for client-only state.

Step 13: Test Query Hooks and Composables With Vitest

Untested data-fetching code is one of the most common sources of production regressions after a caching library is introduced, mostly because engineers forget the test environment needs its own isolated QueryClient. Here’s a working pattern for testing the React PostList component from Step 3 with Vitest and React Testing Library.

// src/PostList.test.tsx
import { render, screen, waitFor } from '@testing-library/react'
import { QueryClient, QueryClientProvider } from '@tanstack/react-query'
import { describe, it, expect, vi } from 'vitest'
import { PostList } from './PostList'

function renderWithClient(ui: React.ReactElement) {
  const testClient = new QueryClient({
    defaultOptions: { queries: { retry: false } },
  })
  return render(
    <QueryClientProvider client={testClient}>{ui}</QueryClientProvider>
  )
}

describe('PostList', () => {
  it('renders posts once the query resolves', async () => {
    global.fetch = vi.fn().mockResolvedValue({
      ok: true,
      json: async () => [{ id: 1, title: 'Test Post', body: '' }],
    }) as unknown as typeof fetch

    renderWithClient(<PostList />)

    expect(screen.getByText('Loading posts...')).toBeInTheDocument()
    await waitFor(() => {
      expect(screen.getByText('Test Post')).toBeInTheDocument()
    })
  })
})

Two details make this test reliable instead of flaky. First, retry: false in the test client’s default options prevents TanStack Query from retrying a mocked failed fetch and timing out the test. Second, creating a brand-new QueryClient inside renderWithClient for every test guarantees no cached data leaks between test cases, which would otherwise cause tests to pass or fail depending on run order.

The Vue equivalent follows the same shape, just swapping React Testing Library for @testing-library/vue and wrapping the component with the same VueQueryPlugin pattern used in production, again with a fresh QueryClient and retries disabled per test.

Step 14: Handle Loading and Error States Consistently

A subtle but common mistake is treating “loading” as a single boolean across your whole app. All three libraries expose finer-grained states worth using: isPending/isLoading for the initial fetch, and a separate isFetching flag for background refetches that shouldn’t block the UI with a full-page spinner.

const { data, isPending, isFetching } = useQuery({
  queryKey: ['posts'],
  queryFn: fetchPosts,
})

// isPending: true only on the very first load, no cached data yet
// isFetching: true any time a request is in flight, including background refetches

Use isPending to decide whether to show a skeleton loader (no data exists yet) and isFetching to show a small, non-blocking spinner icon (data exists but is being refreshed). Conflating the two is one of the most common UX bugs in apps that just adopted a caching library.

Common Pitfalls When Setting Up React or Vue Data Fetching

These are the mistakes that repeatedly show up in code review once teams move from manual fetch calls to a query library.

• Forgetting the query key array must be stable. Passing a new object or array literal as part of the key on every render breaks caching entirely, because TanStack Query treats each new reference as a different cache entry. Use primitive values (strings, numbers, or serializable objects) inside the key.
• Leaving staleTime at zero in production. The library’s default is to treat data as stale immediately, which triggers a background refetch on every component mount and every window focus. This is fine for a demo, but it multiplies API calls in a real app. Set an explicit staleTime matching how often your data actually changes.
• Creating a new QueryClient inside a component body. If new QueryClient() runs inside a component function instead of at module scope, you get a fresh, empty cache on every re-render, defeating the entire purpose of the library.
• Mixing Pinia Colada and Vue Query in the same app without a migration plan. Running both libraries side by side to “try it out” doubles your dependency size and creates two separate caches for what should be one source of truth. Pick one before shipping to production.
• Not invalidating related queries after a mutation. If a mutation creates a new post, but you only invalidate the specific post’s detail query and forget the list query, your list view silently shows stale data until the next full page reload.
• Ignoring retry behavior on mutations. Queries retry failed requests by default; mutations do not, by design, since retrying a POST or DELETE can cause duplicate side effects. Handle mutation failures explicitly with onError instead of assuming automatic retry will save you.
• Using useEffect (React) or watch (Vue) to manually sync query data into local state. This reintroduces the exact stale-state bugs the library was meant to eliminate. Read directly from the query’s returned data wherever possible instead of copying it into a separate state variable.
• Prefetching on the server without matching query keys on the client. If you’re rendering with a framework that supports server-side prefetching, a mismatched queryKey between the server prefetch call and the client-side useQuery call means the client re-fetches from scratch instead of hydrating from the server-rendered cache, silently doubling your initial API load.

Most of these mistakes share a root cause: treating a caching library like a slightly fancier fetch wrapper instead of understanding the cache lifecycle it manages underneath. Spending an hour with the devtools panel open, watching queries transition between fresh, stale, and fetching states as you interact with a real app, catches more of these issues than reading documentation alone.

Expected Output When Everything Works

Once your setup is correct, running npm run dev on either project and opening the browser devtools network tab should show this pattern: exactly one network request to jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts on initial load, zero additional requests when you navigate away and back within the staleTime window, and exactly one new request after a successful mutation triggers invalidateQueries.

$ npm run dev

  VITE v7.1.2  ready in 312 ms

  ➜  Local:   http://localhost:5173/
  ➜  Network: use --host to expose

# Browser console (React Query Devtools panel):
# Query: ["posts"]   Status: success   Observers: 1   Last updated: 2s ago

If you open the TanStack Query Devtools panel (React) or the Vue Query Devtools, you should see the ["posts"] query listed with a green “fresh” indicator during the staleTime window, turning gray (“stale”) once it expires, and briefly flashing blue during a background refetch triggered by invalidation.

Troubleshooting Guide

Work through these in order if your data fetching isn’t behaving as expected.

1. “No QueryClient set” error in React. This means a component using useQuery is rendered outside the QueryClientProvider tree. Double-check that the provider wraps your entire <App /> in main.tsx, not just a subset of routes.
2. “No QueryClient found” in Vue. The equivalent Vue error, almost always caused by calling app.use(VueQueryPlugin) after app.mount() instead of before it. Plugins must be registered before mounting.
3. Data flashes empty, then populates on every navigation. Your staleTime is likely set to 0 (the default). Add an explicit value like staleTime: 60 * 1000 to your default options.
4. Mutation succeeds but the UI doesn’t update. Check that the queryKey passed to invalidateQueries exactly matches (or is a valid prefix of) the key used in your useQuery call. A typo like ['post'] vs ['posts'] silently fails to invalidate anything.
5. TypeScript errors on useQuery’s return type. Make sure your queryFn has an explicit return type annotation. TanStack Query infers the data type from the function’s return type, and an untyped async function often resolves to any, hiding real bugs.
6. Pinia Colada composable throws “must be called within setup()”. Like all Vue Composition API functions, useQuery from Pinia Colada can only be called during a component’s setup() phase (or inside <script setup>), never inside an event handler or a plain async function called later.
7. Requests fire twice in development but not production. This is React 19’s Strict Mode intentionally double-invoking effects to surface side-effect bugs. It’s expected in dev and does not happen in a production build; it is not a TanStack Query issue.
8. Devtools panel shows no queries at all. Verify you imported the devtools component from the correct package (@tanstack/react-query-devtools for React) and that it’s rendered inside, not outside, the QueryClientProvider.
9. CORS errors when fetching from a custom API. This is unrelated to TanStack Query or Pinia Colada; it’s a server-side header issue. Confirm your API sends Access-Control-Allow-Origin for your dev origin before assuming the query library is broken.

Advanced Tips for Production Apps

Once the basics work, a few advanced patterns matter for real-world apps handling AI-driven or high-frequency data.

Use query prefetching for perceived performance. Both TanStack Query and Pinia Colada support prefetching data before a user navigates to a page, for example on link hover. This makes route transitions feel instant because the data is already cached by the time the component mounts.

Pair with streaming AI responses carefully. If you’re building chat-style UIs backed by an AI SDK (Vercel AI SDK on the React side, or community Vue integrations), don’t route token-by-token streaming through the query cache itself. Use the query layer for the surrounding conversation history and metadata, and a dedicated streaming hook for the live response body.

Set query-level staleTime overrides for volatile data. Not every query in your app should share the same global staleTime. A user’s profile data might be safe to cache for five minutes, while a live dashboard metric needs a much shorter window or a polling interval via refetchInterval.

Test cache behavior, not just component rendering. When writing tests with Vitest or Jest, wrap components under test in a fresh QueryClientProvider per test case, with retries disabled, to avoid flaky tests caused by real network retry timers running during your test suite.

Consider persisting the cache for offline-friendly apps. Both the TanStack Query ecosystem and the broader Vue ecosystem support persisting query results to localStorage or IndexedDB, so a returning user sees cached data instantly instead of a blank loading state while a background refetch runs. This is worth adding once your app has real returning users, but skip it for a first pass, since debugging cache persistence bugs alongside cache invalidation bugs at the same time makes both harder to isolate.

Complete Working Project Structure

Here’s how the finished React project should be organized once you’ve completed all the steps above.

react-query-demo/
├── src/
│   ├── main.tsx           # QueryClientProvider setup
│   ├── App.tsx             # Renders PostList + CreatePost
│   ├── PostList.tsx         # useQuery example
│   └── CreatePost.tsx       # useMutation example
├── package.json
└── vite.config.ts

vue-query-demo/
├── src/
│   ├── main.ts              # VueQueryPlugin + Pinia registration
│   ├── App.vue
│   ├── PostList.vue          # Vue Query useQuery example
│   ├── CreatePost.vue        # Vue Query useMutation example
│   └── PostListColada.vue    # Pinia Colada alternative implementation
├── package.json
└── vite.config.ts

Both projects run with the same two commands: npm run dev for local development and npm run build to produce a production bundle. Neither setup requires any additional build configuration beyond the default Vite template, since both TanStack Query and Pinia Colada ship as plain npm packages with no bundler-specific plugins required.

Which Setup Should You Actually Choose?

If you’re on React, the decision is simple: TanStack Query is the closest thing the ecosystem has to a de facto standard for server-state management, and there’s no serious Vue-style alternative competing for that role in React apps. The only real choice is whether to also add a dedicated global state library like Zustand or Redux for client-only state, which is a separate decision from data fetching entirely.

On the Vue side, the choice is more nuanced. Teams already deep into Pinia for global state, and who want one unified mental model for both client and server state, gain real simplicity from Pinia Colada. Teams that frequently share patterns or even code between a React and a Vue codebase, or that want the most mature, widest-tested implementation, are better served sticking with @tanstack/vue-query, especially given both TanStack packages ship from the same repository on the same release schedule, reducing the chance of the two falling out of sync.

Neither choice locks you in permanently. The official Pinia Colada migration guide documents a near line-by-line mapping from Vue Query’s API, meaning teams that pick wrong early on have a documented, mechanical path to switch later without a full rewrite.

Team size and hiring also factor in more than most comparison articles admit. A larger engineering org onboarding new hires regularly benefits from the wider base of tutorials, Stack Overflow answers, and Discord support that comes with React’s larger overall market share and TanStack Query’s longer track record. A small, stable Vue team that already knows Pinia inside and out will likely move faster with Pinia Colada precisely because there’s one less concept, a separate query client, for every new contributor to learn before they can ship their first data-fetching feature.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is TanStack Query the same thing as React Query?

React Query was the original name of the library before it expanded to support Vue, Svelte, and Solid. Today, @tanstack/react-query is the React-specific package under the broader TanStack Query umbrella, and it behaves identically to the classic React Query most developers already know.

Can I use Pinia Colada in a project that doesn’t use Pinia for anything else?

Yes, but you’ll still need to install and register Pinia as a dependency, since Pinia Colada is built as a Pinia plugin rather than a fully standalone library. If you have no other need for Pinia, @tanstack/vue-query avoids that extra dependency.

Does Vue 3.5’s Vapor Mode change how TanStack Query or Pinia Colada work?

No. Vapor Mode changes how Vue compiles components under the hood for rendering performance, but it doesn’t alter the reactivity primitives (refs, computed values) that both query libraries rely on. Components using either library work the same whether or not Vapor Mode is enabled for that component.

Do I need a separate library if I’m just calling one API endpoint?

For a single, simple fetch with no caching or refetching needs, a plain fetch call inside a hook or composable is fine. The value of TanStack Query or Pinia Colada grows with the number of components sharing data, the frequency of writes, and how much you care about avoiding duplicate requests across a page.

Why does my query refetch every time I switch browser tabs?

This is the default refetchOnWindowFocus behavior, designed to keep data fresh when a user returns to a tab. It’s usually desirable in production but can be distracting during development; set refetchOnWindowFocus: false in your default options if it gets in the way while you’re building.

Can React and Vue Query share a cache across a micro-frontend setup?

Not directly. Each framework’s package instantiates its own QueryClient, and there’s no built-in bridge between a React QueryClient and a Vue QueryClient. Teams running React and Vue micro-frontends together typically keep each framework’s cache independent and share data through a common backend or a lightweight message bus instead.

Is Pinia Colada production-ready in August 2026?

Pinia Colada has an active release cadence and official migration documentation from Vue Query, both signs of a maintained, production-targeted library, though its adoption numbers remain smaller than the more established @tanstack/vue-query package based on package download tracking. Evaluate it for new projects where its Pinia-native model fits, and weigh the smaller community size against that architectural benefit.

Related Coverage

• React vs Vue State Management: Redux, Pinia in 12 Steps [2026]
• React vs Vue Auth Setup: 12 Steps, 100 Min [2026]
• React vs Vue Deployment Pipeline: 13 Steps, 100 Min [2026]
• React vs Vue Testing: Vitest vs Jest, 12 Steps [2026]
• React Compiler vs Vue Vapor Mode: 12 Steps, 90 Min [2026]