Local-first software (2019)

In theory, I love the local-first mode of building. It aligns well with “small tech” philosophy where privacy and data ownership are fundamental.

In practice, it’s hard! You’re effectively responsible for building a sync engine, handling conflict resolution, managing schema migration, etc.

This said, tools for local-first software development seem to have improved in the past couple years. I keep my eye on jazz.tools, electric-sql, and Rocicorp’s Zero. Are there others?

I think I saw someone point out automerge not long ago:

https://automerge.org/

Rust and JavaScript implementations, a handful of network strategies. It doesn't come with the free or paid offering that jazz.tools does, but it's pretty nice.