2026.08.06

📰 News & Discussions

Local-First Conf 2026 talks

Video recordings of talks from Local-First Conf 2026 are now available.

Durable Offline Writes: Lessons from Seven Sync Engines

"I have been circling this problem for years. Back in 2019 I built debe, a reactive offline-first datastore with CRDT-based sync, multi-master replication, and adapters for SQLite, Postgres, and in-memory stores. It never shipped to production. Building it taught me that convergence is only one part of a real sync product. Authorization, durable recovery, bootstrap, retention, and debugging are just as fundamental. Seven years later, the ecosystem is much larger. I spent a long time evaluating the current generation of sync tools, building prototypes, and finding the places where application-specific glue begins. Eventually I realized that the glue was the system I wanted to build. The result became Syncular: local SQLite on every client, a server-authoritative commit log, explicit scopes, and one written protocol implemented independently in TypeScript and Rust." See also Show HN

06 · E2EE in the Local-First Setting 2026 Jul 31 | Ink & Switch

"As an outsider to the local-first ecosystem, working with Ink & Switch on BeeKEM made me realize that I held many implicit assumptions about cryptographic protocols which are not general. In this piece, I will discuss end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in the local-first setting and highlight how its security properties, threat model, and goals differ from the centralized setting implicit to most E2EE cloud applications."

Politics and emotion at Local-First Conf

"Last month, 400 people attended the third edition of Local-First Conf in Berlin. As a conference organizer, I helped define the event’s theme on user empowerment in computing. But what surprised me were some emergent themes: a political angle, and the charged and divergent emotional response to how LLMs are changing our industry."

Hologram: Building Local-First Apps in Pure Elixir (upcoming event)

"Hologram is making Local-First possible - with pure Elixir, running right in the browser. This talk showcases those capabilities in action - building applications that work offline, sync data automatically and declaratively, and run entirely in Elixir on both client and server, end-to-end. I’ll walk through the architectural decisions that make Local-First patterns possible and show how developers can start building Local-First applications with Hologram. Attendees will see working code, understand how Hologram brings Local-First to the Elixir ecosystem, and leave equipped to take their first steps building Local-First applications in pure Elixir." ElixirConf US, Sept 10-11, Chicago & Virtual

🛠️ Tools & Resources

Syncular

"syncular is offline-first SQL sync. Local SQLite on every client, a server-authoritative commit log at the center, scope-based authorization at the horizon. Nothing escapes validation; commits cross in order — on the web and natively on iOS, Android, Flutter, React Native, Tauri, and Rust."

Compass

"A fast, local-first knowledge graph for understanding codebases. Compass turns source code and project artifacts into a graph you can search, query, visualize, compare across Git history, and share with development tools."

OpenLore

"Deterministic, local-first memory and guardrails for AI coding agents — with no LLM in the hot path."

✨ Apps

NoteGen

"NoteGen, an open-source local-first Markdown notes app, adds an editable canvas workspace for diagrams, mind maps, timelines, drawings, and charts. The v0.33.0 release also brings canvas editing to mobile, improves file management and sync behavior, and expands AI-assisted retrieval while keeping written notes as ordinary files in a user-selected workspace."

WorldFrame: The offline worldbuilding & writing studio you own

"Build a linked world of characters, places and events, command your own calendar and maps, then write the actual book, all in one private desktop app." "WorldFrame is local-first and works fully offline, with no account and no connection required. Nothing you make ever has to leave your machine."

Epistles: One app for all your email accounts

"Mail lives on your device. Messages, attachments, search index, drafts, and Proton private keys stay local. Search runs against your local cache. Local SQLite mail store. OS keychain protection. Proton keys never enter Cloud Vault"

Friday: Your Desktop AI Personal Assistant

"Local and private: Friday is an Electron desktop app. Provider keys, conversation history, memory, projects, and generated media live in your local application data, not in a hosted account."

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