Local-First and Ejectable
17 comments
·March 14, 2025oDot
wim
Sure but not all backend operations can always be mapped to flat files on Dropbox, like when you have certain real-time collaboration features, syncing on graph/tree-like data structures, or perhaps permissions in case of a company tool. That's why longevity of the "data" aspect is usually easy to solve when a copy of the data is already local, but then you still risk losing a part of what it is that makes the app when there is no way to run the app's syncing backend yourself.
oDot
It serves more use cases than you might think, especially with CRDTs. Nestful is a tree structure and uses Yjs for sync. Permissions can be done in the file system level.
Yes, I agree this is not an end-all be all solution, but the tradeoff is often worth it.
apitman
This pretty much matches the way I think it should be done ideally. I'm still pretty new to local-first though. Are there data formats or types of apps that don't lend themselves well to file-based sync?
For your app, how do notifications of changes get propagated? Does it depend on the backend (Google Drive, etc) supporting that, or does it just do polling or something?
oDot
For the desktop version just watching the directory for changes is enough to achieve that. Nestful is not aware the files are syncing, it just reads files as they are.
xz18r
Not related to the topic, but I first came across Thymer about (I want to say) 2 years ago when I looked for a todo.txt GUI. I found the blog they used to document building it: https://80daystartup.com/
Somehow, this thing is still not available for testing yet. Not hating but isn’t this supposed to be the category where new solutions launch every single day? While I am still very much interested, I’ve lost any hope that this will become a real thing to try out any time soon.
samwillis
I think this is a subset of the fifth (of the seven) ideals of local-first software https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/#5-the-long-now
> Local-first software enables greater longevity because your data, and the software that is needed to read and modify your data, are all stored locally on your computer.
There are many ways to achieve this goal - open document standards, open source servers, a escrowed release of the server, or this idea of a bail out system for taking the current version and self hosting it. All are commendable.
Actually achieving all seven ideals is hard, and there isn't much modern software that does it. But in my view anyone trying to achieve even a few of the ideals is making strides towards a worthy goal.
There is a lot of exciting stuff happening in the local-first software movement at the moment, and a lot of that is related the sync engines that are being built (disclaimer: I work for ElectricSQL, we are building one). These sync engine don't inherently make your software local-first, fitting all the ideals, but they do make it a lot easer to do so. They are an important building block. But there is more needed, we need more open document standards - Automerge, Yjs, Loro and the other CRDT data structures are perfect lower level data structures to build these higher level abstractions on. Martin Kleppmann has talked quite a bit about sync engines that are disconnected from the underlying application, essentially pluggable sync engine, you choose who to use to sync you copy of a document or application - I'm excited to see where this goes.
But, we also need to free up the application distribution platform. The app stores are walled gardens that prevent some business models, native apps (while performant) are tied to a specific platform (or even version!), and the web is inherently tied to servers and browsers. The web platform though, i.e. JS, HTML, CSS, is perfect for building high longevity software that runs anywhere, on any device, the issue is the distribution. We need a middle ground, an application package that built on web standards, but isn't tied to a server. I want to download a bundled app to my machine and have a copy, email to a family member, or even open and hack on it. Thats the final missing piece.
A downloadedable app, with an open and pluggable sync engine would achieve the same goles of this ejectable idea.
danjl
If you use a local, browser-based database, and allow your app to be installed as a PWA, then you are ejectable? The only "server" is just a host for HTML+JS that your browser automatically downloads when you visit the site. The app runs locally, like a desktop app, inside your browser. No need for the items listed in the article.
pscanf
In theory, sort of, but I think that in practice this is not a solid enough solution to make an app and its data future-proof. As I see it, PWAs and browser-based databases are more like an offline cache rather than a permanent way to store apps and data:
- They don't get backed up or synced between devices.
- It's very easy to delete them (e.g, you clear browsing data) or lose them (e.g., you get a new computer).
- Users barely know about them, so they don't know they should "preserve them". For users PWAs are basically just a way to get a launcher for the app, and they have no visibility over locally-stored data.
I think browsers right now are not the right platform to give a future-proof guarantee. Disclaimer: I say this while working on a product that wants to become that platform¹, so I've had the chance of thinking about this problem quite a lot in the past few months.
¹ I wrote a bit about it at https://pscanf.com/s/340/, if you're interested.
danjl
Those are good points, but, of course, until your platform takes over the world, I would argue that browsers are not going anywhere, and work now, bearing in mind the corner cases you mention. Seems to me that fixing those persistence issues is easier to do by improving, rather than replacing, browsers.
pscanf
I definitely agree that we should be improving browsers in that way, though I'm not sure that it's easy and I'm pessimistic it'll ever happen. Mostly because - cynically - I think that the vast majority of users will never care about owning data and software, so I don't see the incentive for browsers vendors to implement features to make it possible.
In their current state, I personally don't find PWAs + local databases ergonomic enough. So actually what I'm hoping to get out of the platform I'm building is - somewhat egotistically - an alternative that works for me personally and possibly for a few others like-minded individuals, not a browser replacement to take over the world.
wim
Many apps have some sort of backend or server component to it though, for syncing or multiplayer features. Usually that part disappears when you don't have the option to eject and self-host.
jdvh
You can think of ejectable as the opposite of being locked-in.
wmf
Most people use the term self-hosting (or self-hostable) instead of ejectable.
wim
One of the important points of an ejectable app is that you can easily move back and forth between cloud and self-hosted.
You can always start with the cloud version and then transfer to self-hosted if you change your mind and continue right where you left off. Not just that, you can also move from self-hosted back to cloud. That makes it easier to get start with a service because you're free to change your mind without lock-in or risk of painful migrations.
I run an offline-first app[0] that has a sync mechanism (over Yjs). To solve server longevity we just sell you a lifetime license of the app and allow for file-based sync.
While I agree with the sentiment of the article most users do not even know what a server is, much less capable of self-hosting. Syncing a folder over Dropbox or Google Drive, though, is simple enough.
[0]: https://nestful.app