PowerSync
by alexander-opalic
A Postgres-based sync engine with offline support, designed for mobile and web apps that need reliable local-first data access.
offline-first
(13)15 Years of Local First: A Best-of Report from the Field
by jan-lehnardt
The strongest argument for local-first isn't developer experience — it's that offline-capable sync kept Ebola contact tracing running, COVID vaccinations documented, and humanitarian convoys navigating when no other architecture could.
Talk Outline: Building Websites with Local-First and Vue
by alexander-opalic
Outline for a talk tracing the journey from manual DOM manipulation to reactive frameworks to offline-first to local-first, with practical Vue examples and sync engine comparisons.
Offline-First Apps with TanStack DB and PowerSync
by dev-agrawal
Most offline conflicts never happen in practice — non-overlapping writes and orthogonal field edits cover the majority of cases, so the real engineering challenge is choosing the right escalation strategy for the conflicts that do.
Sync Protocols and the Truth Behind Local-First
by tom-redman
Offline writes destroy serializability — it's a mathematical fact, not an engineering limitation. Reconciliation is a product design exercise, not a computer science problem, and you should start with strong consistency guarantees and intentionally weaken them.
Local-First Software
A comprehensive map of local-first software — from foundational philosophy and CRDTs to sync engines, tooling, and real-world production stories.
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.
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.
Sync Engines for Vue Developers
by alexander-opalic
Vue already syncs your refs to the DOM. Sync engines extend that same idea to databases — keeping client state and server state in harmony. Here's how Replicache, Zero, Convex, PowerSync, LiveStore, Jazz, and Dexie each approach this differently.
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: 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.
What is Local-first Web Development?
by alexander-opalic
An introduction to local-first web development, a paradigm shift that prioritizes storing data on users' devices first, enabling offline functionality, instant access, and greater user control over their data.
Powering Offline-First Forestry in Europe's Wilds
by alexander-thiele
When your users spend entire days in forests with zero connectivity, local-first isn't a nice-to-have — it's the only architecture that works. OCELL's sync queue proves the pattern, but cascading failures from a single invalid GeoJSON reveal sync's hardest unsolved problem.