2025.09.04

📰 News & Discussions

The Future of Databases is Local-First

"local-first should be the default standard for building apps, apps that aren’t disrupted by network issues, airplane mode, or any other variable we can’t control. If we want to deliver truly great user experiences, the database must be local."

localfirst.fm Special: Announcing SyncConf 2025

"In this special episode, together with Adam Wiggins and James Arthur, we’re excited to announce the first Sync Conf in San Francisco in November."

We Built a Real-Time, Local-Data, Competitive Coding Game

"Scott, Wes, and CJ dive into SynHax, Scott's Hackweek project for code battles. They discuss live coding duels, referee controls, and the surprisingly simple tech stack that delivers instant updates and audience engagement."

Replacing a cache service with a database

"I’ve been thinking about this: will we ever replace caches entirely with databases? In this post I will share some ideas and how we are moving towards it. tl;dr we are still not there, yet."

Why Sync

"This is my writeup on why I think sync is trending, and more broadly why it’s an ideal foundation for the next generation of web apps."

Offline-First Landscape – 2025 | Hacker News

This post from January 2025 did the rounds on Hacker News recently. "We embarked on a long and rambling journey through essentially all prior art and work in the offline-first world. It's a very hard problem to solve."

🛠️ Tools & Resources

AirState

"Collaboration is your users' default expectation. AirState's SDKs provide powerful primitives to add real-time features into any webapp."

SQLite's documentation about its durability properties is unclear

"The two relevant configuration options are journal_mode and synchronous. journal_mode has several possible values, but most people use either DELETE or WAL. synchronous has four possible values: EXTRA, FULL, NORMAL, and OFF."

React Native Local Database Options: A Comprehensive Summary (Update)

"The growing interest in local-first architectures for React Native led us to further explore the various local database options in the React Native ecosystem."

✨ Apps

Time Tracker

"Instead of using online-first options like Toggl and Clockify, use a lightning-fast, local-first option. Time Tracker can sync with multiple computers by using cloud or network storage."

Perfice

"The app is built with web technologies to be run completely in the browser, all data is stored locally, with the calculations being done by your machine. Only if you enable synchronization between devices (end-to-end encrypted) or 3rd-party integrations (like Fitbit, Todoist etc) will the data leave your device."

TeXlyre

"Local-first real-time LaTeX collaboration platform"

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