A curated list of local-first software, resources, and development tools. Local-first software prioritizes data ownership, offline functionality, and synchronization — keeping user data primarily on their devices.
- Local-First Software – The original article introducing local-first principles by Ink & Switch
- Building Local-First Software – Academic paper on local-first principles
- Why Haven't Local-First Apps Taken Off? (2025) – Examines distributed complexity and adoption barriers
- I Was Wrong. CRDTs Are the Future – Joseph Gentle (ex-Google Wave) on why he abandoned OT for CRDTs
- You Might Not Need a CRDT – When CRDTs are overkill and alternative sync approaches
- Local, First, Forever – Tonsky on building local-first sync on top of plain file storage
- Home-Cooked Software and Barefoot Developers – Maggie Appleton on personal, local software enabled by AI
- Are Sync Engines the Future of Web Applications? – Deep dive into sync engine design
- Building Data-Centric Apps with a Reactive Relational Database – Reactive DB patterns by Riffle
- End-to-End Encryption in the Browser – E2E encryption technical breakdown
- Designing Data Structures for Collaborative Apps – Practical guide to CRDT structure design
- Beehive (Ink & Switch 2024) – Decentralized access control and convergent capabilities
- Ossa Protocol (2025) – Open universal sync protocol for local-first interoperability
- Implementing Local-First Architecture: A CTO's Guide – Practical guide covering schema migrations, encryption, and the server's changed role
- Peritext: A CRDT for Rich-Text Collaboration – Novel algorithm for merging concurrent rich-text edits
- Pushpin: Towards Production-Quality P2P Collaboration – Lessons from building a fully peer-to-peer collaborative corkboard
- Project Cambria: Translate Your Data with Lenses – Bidirectional schema evolution for local-first apps
- Upwelling: Real-time Collaboration + Version Control – Combines CRDT collaboration with branch-like "layers" for writing privacy
- Patchwork: Towards Universal Version Control – Branching, diffing, and history for all kinds of apps beyond code
- Why Superhuman Is Built for Speed – Applying the 100 ms rule
- A Gentle Introduction to CRDTs – Beginner-friendly CRDT explanation
- CRDTs Go Brrr – Deep dive into CRDT performance optimizations
- Are CRDTs Suitable for Shared Editing? – Yjs creator benchmarks CRDT overhead
- What Is Local First? – Overview by Peter van Hardenberg
- Local-First Development – Introduction to local-first concepts
- Local-First Conf 2024 – Full conference playlist
- SyncConf 2025 (Preview) – Conference focused on synchronization
- CRDTs for Mortals – James Long (dotJS 2019) – Approachable intro to CRDTs through building a personal finance app
- CRDTs: The Hard Parts – Martin Kleppmann (Hydra 2020) – Real-world CRDT challenges: move operations, interleaving, and performance
- Jared Forsyth's Local-First Database Series – Evaluations of local-first databases against core criteria
- Bartosz Sypytkowski's CRDT Blog Series – 22-post series covering state-based and operation-based CRDTs
- The Spectrum of Local First Libraries – Practical comparison of Triplit, Evolu, Zero, LiveStore, and others
- Comparing Local-First Frameworks (Neon) – Technical comparison of local-first frameworks
- Electric SQL – Sync Postgres data into local apps with offline support
- WatermelonDB – Reactive DB for React / React Native
- Fireproof – Browser-native local-first database
- Evolu – Type-safe offline-first database with sync
- Dexie.js – IndexedDB wrapper with sync
- TanStack DB (2025) – Reactive client-side data layer with optimistic mutations and sync engine support
- LiveStore (2024) – Event-sourced local-first framework using in-memory SQLite
- Triplit – Full-stack sync engine + database (acquired by Supabase 2025)
- InstantDB (2024) – Firebase-style backend with offline & real-time sync
- Zero (2024) – Reactive sync engine from the Replicache team
- RxDB – Reactive NoSQL DB with replication, encryption, multi-tab
- PowerSync – Offline-first sync engine for mobile/web
- Y-Sweet – Open-source Yjs sync and persistence server (self-hosted)
- Turso Sync (2025) – Sync local SQLite with edge-hosted SQLite
- PouchDB – Classic offline-first JS database with CouchDB sync
- GUN.js – Decentralized P2P graph database with CRDT-based conflict resolution
- OrbitDB – Serverless P2P database on IPFS using Merkle-CRDTs
- cr-sqlite (Vulcan) – SQLite extension adding CRDT-based multi-writer replication
- libSQL – Open-source SQLite fork with embedded replicas for local-first reads
- Legend State – Reactive state with persistence
- Replicache – Client-side sync with conflict resolution (maintenance mode; see Zero)
- Tinybase – Reactive data store & sync engine
- Automerge – CRDT library with fast binary format & WASM support (v3.0 with 10x memory reduction)
- Yjs – High-performance CRDT framework
- Loro – JSON and rich-text CRDT
- Collabs – Composable CRDTs from CMU (low activity)
- Diamond Types – High-performance Rust CRDT for text editing (WIP)
- Jazz (CoJSON) – Local-first framework with built-in auth, sync, permissions, and E2E encryption
- DXOS – Open-source P2P framework with ECHO reactive DB and HALO decentralized identity
- Verdant – IndexedDB-powered storage, sync, and real-time collaboration for local-first web apps
- Liveblocks – Real-time collaboration SDK with presence, storage, and Yjs-backed sync (cloud-hosted)
- PartyKit (Cloudflare) – Edge-deployed stateful servers for real-time multiplayer apps (cloud-hosted)
- Hocuspocus – Yjs WebSocket backend with persistence and authorization
- Cloudflare Durable Objects – Edge-deployed stateful primitives with built-in SQLite (cloud infrastructure)
- Earthstar – Offline-first P2P sync protocol for small-group collaboration
- libp2p – Modular P2P networking stack supporting TCP, QUIC, WebRTC, and WebTransport
- Hypercore / Hyperswarm – Append-only log with DHT-based peer discovery and hole-punching
- Pear Runtime (Holepunch) – Zero-infrastructure P2P runtime for desktop, mobile, and terminal apps
- Socket Runtime – P2P runtime turning web apps into native apps with built-in peer networking
- Iroh – QUIC-based Rust library for P2P connectivity with relay fallback
- IPFS – Content-addressed P2P storage and distribution protocol
- Syncthing – Open-source continuous P2P file synchronization with E2E encryption
- Nostr – Open relay-based protocol for decentralized publishing
- AT Protocol – Bluesky's protocol with self-authenticating data and portable identity
- Braid HTTP – IETF draft extending HTTP into a state synchronization protocol
- Couchbase Lite – Embedded NoSQL database for mobile/IoT with offline-first operation and P2P sync
- ObjectBox – High-performance on-device database with built-in data sync for mobile, IoT, and edge (sync is commercial)
- UCAN – Trustless, offline-capable, delegated authorization tokens using DIDs
- DID (Decentralized Identifiers) – W3C standard for verifiable, self-sovereign digital identity
- OpenMLS – Rust implementation of the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol for E2E encrypted group communication
- MLS Protocol (RFC 9420) – IETF standard for scalable E2E encrypted group messaging
- Notes on CRDTs + E2E Encryption – Practical research notes on combining CRDTs with encryption
- Figma's Multiplayer Technology – Real-time collaboration internals
- Figma: Making Multiplayer More Reliable – Write-ahead log and reliability improvements
- Notion's WASM SQLite – Browser local-DB performance
- Trello's Offline Architecture – Offline support patterns
- Scaling the Linear Sync Engine – How Linear scaled their local-first sync engine
- Logseq & Obsidian – Markdown-based offline knowledge tools
- Superhuman: Architecting for Offline – Deep-dive into offline-first storage and sync
- Superhuman: Building on Unreliable Networks – Engineering patterns for network resilience
- Expo: Local-First Architecture Guide – Official Expo docs on building local-first mobile apps
Knowledge Management & Notes
- Anytype – Local-first, P2P, E2E encrypted knowledge OS
- AFFiNE – Open-source workspace combining docs, whiteboards, and databases
- AppFlowy – Open-source Notion alternative with full offline mode
- Standard Notes – Open-source, E2E encrypted notes
- Joplin – Open-source offline-first note-taking with optional E2E sync
- Notesnook – Open-source zero-knowledge encrypted notes
- Capacities – Object-based note-taking with offline-first architecture
- Reflect – Local-first networked notes with E2E encryption
- Bangle.io – Local-first notes
- Logseq – Local-first knowledge base and outliner
- Obsidian – Markdown-based knowledge management with local vault storage
Productivity & Collaboration
- Excalidraw – Collaborative drawing
- tldraw – Open-source infinite canvas whiteboard SDK
- Huly – Open-source all-in-one project management platform with offline-first client
- Superhuman – Offline-first email client
Personal & Finance
- Actual – Local-first budgeting
- Finbodhi (2025) – Encrypted personal-finance app
- Timelinize (2025) – Local data aggregation into a personal timeline
- SQLite in Vue Guide – Building offline-first Vue apps
- An Interactive Intro to CRDTs – Hands-on tutorial
- Operational Transformation Visualization – Interactive OT demo
- CRDT Tutorials – Practical examples
- TinyRooms – Multiplayer game using local-first
- RxDB Blog – Why Local-First Is the Future – Deep dive
- CRDTs for Mortals – Example App – Full reference implementation from James Long's talk
- Local-First Web – Community hub
- localfirst.fm – Developer podcast
- Local-First Discord – Active discussion server
- Local-First News – Weekly newsletter with releases & meetups
- LoFi Meetups (2024-25) – Monthly online community events
- Braid IETF WG – Working group for sync protocols
- CRDT.tech – Community website with curated papers, talks, and implementations
- CRDT.tech Resources – Curated collection of CRDT talks and educational materials
- Awesome-CRDT (GitHub) – Curated list of CRDT libraries, papers, and tutorials
- Yjs Community Resources – Index of Yjs-related talks, podcasts, and blogs
- Maggie Appleton on localfirst.fm – Podcast on barefoot developers, AI, and end-user programming
- Local-First Conf 2024 Videos – Sessions by Kleppmann, Artman (Linear), etc.
- LoFi / 28 Meetup (2025) – Dexie, Replication 3 Ways, Legend State performance talk
- SyncConf 2025 Preview – Dedicated sync-tech event
Pull requests welcome! Add tools, libraries, or case studies that advance local-first, offline-first, or sync-centric development.
