Tuesday, October 21, 2025

distributed data SQLite sync: CRDTs (Conflict-Free Replicated Data Types).

Why Local-First Apps Haven’t Become Popular?

CRDTs (Conflict-Free Replicated Data Types).
guarantee two important properties:

Commutativity: Order of application doesn’t matter

Idempotence: Applying the same change twice has no effect

This means you can apply messages in any order, even multiple times, and every device will still converge to the same state.

SQLite Is Perfect for This
If you need a production-ready, cross-platform, offline-first engine for SQLite,
check out open-source SQLite-Sync extension.


GitHub - sqliteai/sqlite-sync: SQLiteSync is a local-first SQLite extension using CRDTs for seamless, conflict-free data sync and real-time collaboration across devices.

SQLite Sync is a multi-platform extension that brings a true local-first experience to your applications with minimal effort. It extends standard SQLite tables with built-in support for offline work and automatic synchronization, allowing multiple devices to operate independently—even without a network connection—and seamlessly stay in sync. With SQLite Sync, developers can easily build distributed, collaborative applications while continuing to rely on the simplicity, reliability, and performance of SQLite.

In simple terms, CRDTs make it possible for multiple users to edit shared data at the same time, from anywhere, and everything just works.