In this episode, Łukasz Chludziński talks with Tanner Linsley—creator of TanStack and co-founder of Nozzle.io—about the evolution of his open-source libraries, starting with React Table and React Query and leading up to TanStack Router and TanStack Start. The discussion focuses on the real technical problems these tools were designed to solve and how they fit into modern application architecture.
Tanner explains why being framework-agnostic, headless, type-safe, and dependency-light matters—not just for developer experience, but for long-term maintainability and business flexibility. He also discusses the trade-offs of client-side and server-first approaches, and where TanStack Start fits into that conversation.
From solving internal pain points to influencing frontend architecture
The conversation begins with Tanner’s early development experiences and how practical needs at Nozzle led to building React Table, React Query, and other libraries. These tools weren’t created in isolation—they emerged from specific challenges around data synchronization, state management, and user expectations in real production apps.
React Query came out of a need to manage stale and shared server state more effectively than Redux allowed. Similarly, TanStack Router began when Tanner hit architectural limitations in React Router and needed better control over state stored in URLs. TanStack Start brings these ideas together into a full-stack solution that still keeps the client-first model front and center.
What makes TanStack Start stand out
TanStack Start adds full-stack capabilities like SSR, server functions, and API routes on top of TanStack Router, without forcing a server-first model. Applications built with a client-side mindset can gradually adopt server-side features as needed. This is especially useful for teams migrating incrementally or maintaining large existing React apps.
Tanner also shares his thoughts on React Server Components. Instead of following Next.js’s approach, he proposes treating them as another form of server state—something that can be streamed, cached, and integrated using TanStack Query.
Key discussion points in the episode
- Why open-source libraries are best built on real-world use cases
- How React Query reframed the conversation around global state by introducing the client/server state split
- What headless, type-safe design means in practice, and how it reduces support complexity
- The thinking behind framework-agnostic cores and adapters for React, Solid, Angular, and more
- A practical model for working with React Server Components using TanStack tools
Learn even more about the TanStack ecosystem
- Łukasz Chludziński on X, Bluesky, and GitHub
- Tanner Linsley on X and GitHub
- Tanner’s blog
- TanStack documentation
- TanStack on GitHub
- TanStack Discord community
