Soar Above The Cloud: How Local-First Software Can Help Users and Developers

Many of even the most impressive apps today have one glaring bug: they become almost useless if the network goes out. Even when you have a perfect connection, anything that depends on server state is going to have some sort of delay. End-users will tell you that spinner fatigue is real! The cloud tax is a major drag on developers, too; even very simple app ideas require provisioning infrastructure, sophisticated networking code, and so many other complexities that would melt away if only you could just worry about whatever data is on disk. Local-first architecture is a paradigm for keeping the primary working copy of app data on the user's device rather than the cloud, syncing those changes without conflicts, even when devices are offline for a long time. Let’s get familiar with “LoFi,” how it’s a win for users and developers, and some new tools that streamline building local-first cross-platform React apps.