correct usage of reduce-reducers

The difference is:

• combineReducers creates nested state
• reduceReducers creates flat state

Consider following reducers. There are no action types to make things simpler:

// this reducer adds a payload to state.sum 
// and tracks total number of operations
function reducerAdd(state, payload) {
  if (!state) state = { sum: 0, totalOperations: 0 }
  if (!payload) return state

  return {
    ...state,
    sum: state.sum + payload,
    totalOperations: state.totalOperations + 1
  }
}

// this reducer multiplies state.product by payload
// and tracks total number of operations
function reducerMult(state, payload) {
  if (!state) state = { product: 1, totalOperations: 0 }
  if (!payload) return state

  // `product` might be undefined because of 
  // small caveat in `reduceReducers`, see below
  const prev = state.product || 1

  return {
    ...state,
    product: prev * payload,
    totalOperations: state.totalOperations + 1
  }
}

combineReducers

Each reducer gets an independent piece of state (see also http://redux.js.org/docs/api/combineReducers.html):

const rootReducer = combineReducers({
  add: reducerAdd,
  mult: reducerMult
})

const initialState = rootReducer(undefined)
/*
 * {
 *   add:  { sum: 0, totalOperations: 0 },
 *   mult: { product: 1, totalOperations: 0 },
 * }
 */


const first = rootReducer(initialState, 4)
/*
 * {
 *   add:  { sum: 4, totalOperations: 1 },
 *   mult: { product: 4, totalOperations: 1 },
 * }
 */    
// This isn't interesting, let's look at second call...

const second = rootReducer(first, 4)
/*
 * {
 *   add:  { sum: 8, totalOperations: 2 },
 *   mult: { product: 16, totalOperations: 2 },
 * }
 */
// Now it's obvious, that both reducers get their own 
// piece of state to work with

reduceReducers

All reducers share the same state

const addAndMult = reduceReducers(reducerAdd, reducerMult) 

const initial = addAndMult(undefined)
/* 
 * {
 *   sum: 0,
 *   totalOperations: 0
 * }
 *
 * First, reducerAdd is called, which gives us initial state { sum: 0 }
 * Second, reducerMult is called, which doesn't have payload, so it 
 * just returns state unchanged. 
 * That's why there isn't any `product` prop.
 */ 

const next = addAndMult(initial, 4)
/* 
 * {
 *   sum: 4,
 *   product: 4,
 *   totalOperations: 2
 * }
 *
 * First, reducerAdd is called, which changes `sum` = 0 + 4 = 4
 * Second, reducerMult is called, which changes `product` = 1 * 4 = 4
 * Both reducers modify `totalOperations`
 */


const final = addAndMult(next, 4)
/* 
 * {
 *   sum: 8,
 *   product: 16,
 *   totalOperations: 4
 * }
 */

Use cases

• combineReducers – each reducer manage own slice of state (e.g. state.todos and state.logging). This is useful when creating a root reducer.
• reduceReducers – each reducer manage the same state. This is useful when chaining several reducers which are supposed to operate over the same state (this might happen for example when combining several reducer created using handleAction from redux-actions)

The difference is obvious from the final state shape.