Local-First Software
A comprehensive map of local-first software — from foundational philosophy and CRDTs to sync engines, tooling, and real-world production stories.
data-ownership
(10)The Local-First Litmus Test: Real Examples Across the Spectrum
by alexander-opalic
Not everything that caches locally is local-first. The real test: does the app still work if the company disappears? A categorized directory of real apps across the spectrum.
Local First & Social Software in the Era of LLMs
by zhanna-sharipova
Owning your data isn't enough — local-first must extend to owning your communication channels, and the same infrastructure that protects human social connections will become the foundation for a trustworthy multi-agent future.
The UX of Local-First
by eileen-wagner
The tech for local-first has matured but the UX hasn't — four unsolved design challenges stand between us and mainstream adoption, and they require collective agreement, not individual solutions.
Panel Discussion: The Big Questions of Local-First
by adam-wiggins, martin-kleppmann, aaron-boodman, peter-van-hardenberg
The original local-first essayists and a pragmatic sync-engine builder clash on whether offline writes should ship today or wait for version-control UX — revealing that the real fault line isn't technical but philosophical: who does the tool serve first?
Local-First Software: Pragmatism vs Idealism
by adam-wiggins
Movements like local-first succeed when idealists define the vision and pragmatists build the infrastructure—neither alone crosses the finish line.
Local-First Software: Taking Back Control of Our Data
by cultrepo
Local-first isn't just offline capability—it's a paradigm shift where data lives on user devices by default, servers become optional infrastructure, and CRDTs enable collaboration without sacrificing ownership.
A Social Filesystem
by dan-abramov
User-generated social data should behave like files: portable across apps, owned by users, and independent of any single platform.
The Past, Present, and Future of Local-First
by martin-kleppmann
Martin Kleppmann traces local-first from CRDTs to a proposed definition: software where another computer's availability never blocks the user—including when the developer shuts down.
Local-First Software: You Own Your Data, in Spite of the Cloud
by martin-kleppmann, adam-wiggins, peter-van-hardenberg, mark-mcgranaghan
A foundational essay proposing that data ownership and real-time collaboration are not mutually exclusive, introducing CRDTs as the enabling technology for local-first software.