Fireproof – local-first database with Git-like encrypted sync
Hi, HN! As a cofounder of Couchbase, I pioneered mobile sync, and I’ve always wanted to bring the speed and reliability of local-first data to the web, incubating PouchDB among other efforts. I learned the constraints of real world financial applications at McKinsey & Company FinLab, and Merkle integrity research at Protocol Labs taught me smart contract data structures. As part of the JavaScript community (and early hosting provider for NPM) I’ve been waiting, and now with the availability of APIs like Passkeys and Origin Private Filesystem, I’m happy to say the browser is ready to support…
Fireproof – local-first database with Git-like encrypted sync launched on November 19, 2024 with 99 votes, #429 of 4,990 launches that month and more than 90% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 1 year on.
In plain words
Fireproof is a local-first database for web applications that stores data on users' devices and syncs changes using Git-like encrypted protocols, eliminating reliance on cloud servers. Built for JavaScript developers, it enables faster frontend development by handling live synchronization at the browser level. The database leverages modern web APIs like Passkeys and Origin Private Filesystem to provide embedded database functionality previously unavailable to web applications.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
🔥 The quickest way to bring live data to your app.
Runs in the browser, fits in the context window, and syncs anywhere. LLMs.txt is a universal way to share prompts — ours is designed for one-shot success . Paste it into any AI code generator along with something like “an inventory tracker for my bakery.” Write your app first, choose your backend later. Getting started is as easy as adding a script tag or running npm install use-fireproof in your project. Experience live updates across peers so everyone can collaborate together, using your existing backend. Try the React or Solid tutorials, open the code pen above , hack on this HTMX example , or check out these open-source starters: Get started using Fireproof with…from fireproof.storage
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hi, HN! As a cofounder of Couchbase, I pioneered mobile sync, and I’ve always wanted to bring the speed and reliability of local-first data to the web, incubating PouchDB among other efforts. I learned the constraints of real world financial applications at McKinsey & Company FinLab, and Merkle integrity research at…
Does a similar job
all alternatives →
InstantDB – A Modern Firebase2024 · github.com · ▲1,145Hey there HN! We’re Joe and Stopa, and today we’re open sourcing InstantDB, a client-side database that makes it easy to build real-time and collaborative apps like Notion and Figma. Building modern apps these days involves a lot of schleps. For a basic CRUD app you need to spin up servers, wire up endpoints, integrate auth, add permissions, and then marshal data from the backend to the frontend and back again. If you want to deliver a buttery smooth user experience, you’ll need to add optimistic updates and rollbacks. We do these steps over and over for every feature we build, which can…
Cloud Firestore, by Firebase2017 · firebase.google.com · ▲275Store, sync and query app data at global scale
- PTPouchDB - The JavaScript database that syncs2013 · pouchdb.com · ▲82
Firebase, a scalable real-time backend2012 · firebase.com · ▲526Discover Firebase, Google’s mobile and web app development platform that helps developers build apps and games that users will love.
- DADriftDB – an open source WebSocket backend for real-time apps2023 · driftdb.com · ▲367
Hey HN! I’ve written a bunch of WebSocket servers over the years to do simple things like state synchronization, WebRTC signaling, and notifying a client when a backend job was run. I realized that if I had a simple way to create a private, temporary, mini-redis that the client could talk to directly, it would save a lot of time. So we created DriftDB. In addition to the open source server that you can run yourself, we also provide https://jamsocket.live where you can use an instance we host on Cloudflare’s edge (~13ms round trip latency from my home in NY). You may have seen my…
Bi-directional sync between Postgres and SQLite2023 · powersync.com · ▲356Hi HN, Today we’re launching PowerSync, a Postgres<>SQLite bi-directional sync engine that enables an offline-first app architecture. It currently supports Flutter, React Native and web (JavaScript) using Wasm SQLite in the browser, with more client SDKs on the way. Conrad and I (Ralf) have been working on our sync engine since 2009, originally as part of a full-stack app platform. That version of the system is still used in production worldwide and we’ve learnt a lot from its use cases and scaling. About a year ago we started on spinning off PowerSync as a standalone product that is…
More dev tools this month
the category →

open-source IDE for thoughtful software design. Contribute to devdotfast/whiteboard development by creating an account on GitHub.
Dev tools · 27d ago · github.com

Contribute to reladraw/reladraw development by creating an account on GitHub.
Dev tools · 25d ago · github.com
OpenBot▲362Grok Bot alternative: free, local, open-source, multiplayer
Dev tools · 22d ago · openbot.run
Talanoa▲340Hi HN, I’m a fullstack developer, and honestly, I’ve lost count of how many side projects I’ve worked on over the years. But one idea kept coming back to me: a different kind of email client. It first came to me in 2014: “What if we could handle emails more like conversations?” Every year, I’d revisit this concept in my “Build Notes.” Ten years later, no one had built exactly what I had in mind — so I finally decided to do it myself. That’s how Talanoa was born. I wanted something focused on people, not timelines. I was tired of marking messages as unread just to remember to reply later, or…
Dev tools · 20d ago · talanoa.email
CoreSpeed▲332One MCP for everything your agents need: apps, memory, tools
Dev tools · 27d ago · corespeed.io
Source: Show HN post ↗ · launch text quoted in part
Launched alongside, November 2024
the whole month →
Lovable▲1,477Hey HN! Previous CERN physicist turned hacker here. We've developed a way to make AI coding actually work by systematically identifying and fixing places where LLMs typically fail in full-stack development. Today we're launching as Lovable (previously gptengineer.app) since it's such a big change. The problem? AI writing code typically make small mistakes and then get stuck. Those who tried know the frustration. We fixed most of this by mapping out where LLMs fail in full-stack dev and engineering around those pitfalls with prompt chains. Thanks to this, in all comparisons I found with: v0,…
AI · 2024 · lovable.dev

Postiz▲1,188Streamline your social media with Postiz. Schedule posts, analyze performance, and manage all accounts in one place.
Dev tools · 2024 · postiz.com

I wasn't quite sure if this qualified as "Show HN" given you can't really download it and try it out. However, dang said[0]: > If it's hardware or something that's not so easy to try out over the internet, find a different way to show how it actually works—a video, for example, or a detailed post with photos. Hopefully I did that? Additionally, I've put code and a detailed guide for the netboot computer management setup on GitHub: https://github.com/kentonv/lanparty Anyway, if this shouldn't have been Show HN, I apologize! [0]…
Dev tools · 2024 · lanparty.house
Raycast Notes▲1,058Unlock a new level productivity with AI, Cloud Sync and more
Work · 2024 · raycast.com
