Show HN: ElectricSQL, Postgres to SQLite active-active sync for local-first apps

• electric

  27 4,784 9.8 Elixir

  Local-first sync layer for web and mobile apps. Build reactive, realtime, local-first apps directly on Postgres.

  

Hi HN, James, Valter, Sam and the team from ElectricSQL here.

We're really excited to be sharing ElectricSQL with you today. It's an open source, local-first sync layer that can be used to build reactive, realtime, offline-capable apps directly on Postgres with two way active-active sync to SQLite (including with WASM in the browser).

Electric comprises a sync layer (built with Elixir) placed in front of your Postgres database and a type safe client that allows you to bidirectionally sync data from your Postgres to local SQLite databases. This sync is CRDT-based, resilient to conflicting edits from multiple nodes at the same time, and works after being offline for extended periods.

Some good links to get started:

- website: https://electric-sql.com

- docs: https://electric-sql.com/docs

- code: https://github.com/electric-sql/electric

- introducing post: https://electric-sql.com/blog/2023/09/20/introducing-electri...

You can also see some demo applications:

- Linear clone: https://linear-lite.electric-sql.com

- Realtime demo: https://electric-sql.com/docs/intro/multi-user

- Conflict-free offline: https://electric-sql.com/docs/intro/offline

The Electric team actually includes two of the inventors of CRDTs, Marc Shapiro and Nuno Preguiça, and a number of their collaborators who've pioneered a lot of tech underpinning local-first software. We are privileged to be building on their research and delighted to be surfacing so much work in a product you can now try out.

• vaxine

  2 109 10.0 Erlang

  Rich-CRDT database based on AntidoteDB.

  

Hi HN, James, Valter, Sam and the team from ElectricSQL here.

We're really excited to be sharing ElectricSQL with you today. It's an open source, local-first sync layer that can be used to build reactive, realtime, offline-capable apps directly on Postgres with two way active-active sync to SQLite (including with WASM in the browser).

Electric comprises a sync layer (built with Elixir) placed in front of your Postgres database and a type safe client that allows you to bidirectionally sync data from your Postgres to local SQLite databases. This sync is CRDT-based, resilient to conflicting edits from multiple nodes at the same time, and works after being offline for extended periods.

Some good links to get started:

- website: https://electric-sql.com

- docs: https://electric-sql.com/docs

- code: https://github.com/electric-sql/electric

- introducing post: https://electric-sql.com/blog/2023/09/20/introducing-electri...

You can also see some demo applications:

- Linear clone: https://linear-lite.electric-sql.com

- Realtime demo: https://electric-sql.com/docs/intro/multi-user

- Conflict-free offline: https://electric-sql.com/docs/intro/offline

The Electric team actually includes two of the inventors of CRDTs, Marc Shapiro and Nuno Preguiça, and a number of their collaborators who've pioneered a lot of tech underpinning local-first software. We are privileged to be building on their research and delighted to be surfacing so much work in a product you can now try out.

• InfluxDB

  www.influxdata.com sponsored

  Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

  

• electric_dart

  2 81 9.7 Dart

  A Dart implementation for Electric (electric-sql.com).

  

Hey, yup it's definitely a medium term objective.

The team at SkillDevs are maintaining a Daft/Flutter client at https://github.com/SkillDevs/electric_dart

Plus we have a thread to extract the core client-side replication component to Rust to be able to compile for multiple targets.

• walex

  17 250 9.1 Elixir

  Postgres change events (CDC) in Elixir

Neat, this is the pattern I've been thinking about for a while now. Also glad to see this is Elixir based.

I've been using https://github.com/cpursley/walex (basically a fork of cainophile via a fork for subabase) to listen to Postgres changes in Elixir.

• cr-sqlite

  28 2,418 9.7 Rust

  Convergent, Replicated SQLite. Multi-writer and CRDT support for SQLite

  

I am fully on the offline-first bandwagon after starting to use cr-sqlite (https://vlcn.io), which works similar to ElectricSQL.

I thought the bundle size of wasm-sqlite would be prohibitive, but it's surprisingly quick to download and boot. Reducing network reliance solves so many problems and corner-cases in my web app. Having access to local data makes everything very snappy too - the user experience is much better. Even if the user's offline data is wiped by the browser (offline storage limits are a bit of a minefield), it is straightforward to get all synced changes back from the server.

• EteSync Server

  84 1,449 4.8 Python

  The Etebase server (so you can run your own) (by etesync)

  

Are you / have you considered leveraging postgres' row level security for this (row filtering)? Feels like a natural fit for ensuring the right subset of data gets to the right users https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/ddl-rowsecurity.html

E2E encryption would also be nice to have, it could be worth having a look at https://www.etesync.com/ for inspiration

• RxDB

  46 20,581 9.9 TypeScript

  A fast, local first, reactive Database for JavaScript Applications https://rxdb.info/

Congrats to the team. Once I’ve tried https://rxdb.info/ and it wasn’t funny at all to do the remote replication (PG) and to deal with conflicts. I do need to check this out!

• WorkOS

  workos.com sponsored

  The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

  

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