What does HackerNews think of wa-sqlite?

Show HN: ElectricSQL, Postgres to SQLite active-active sync for local-first apps | Sep 2023

Hey, thank you :)

We currently use IndexedDB for the virtual filesystem underneath the wa-sqlite [1] WASM SQLite driver in the browser. But yup, that means a ~1.1MB WASM download.

We'll definitely stay with SQLite in the client. One of our key principles is full SQL support (any Postgres supported SQL on the server, any SQLite supported SQL on the client). So we won't go pure IndexedDB without a database on top.

There's a lot of cool stuff going on with OPFS and WASM SQLite atm, so the technical options are evolving fast.

[1] https://github.com/rhashimoto/wa-sqlite

Scaling Linear's Sync Engine | Jun 2023

I have a genuine appreciation for how Linear has built this. We have had to build something similar for our note taking application (Reflect). It is very tricky to do and I wish there was more research on this.

In my opinion, what we need is:

1) A client-side performant SQLite database that supports live queries. I.e. you can automatically re-render the page when the queries change. That way your database can drive the UI and be the source of truth in regards to what's displayed on the screen.

2) A separate realtime syncing protocol that syncs database state to client state.

And ideally this is all open source, and that these two endeavors are not coupled tightly.

[1] Wa-sqlite is the best (imo) client-side db - better than than the official Sqlite WASM build (for now) because it had a indexeddb fallback for browsers that aren't the cutting edge Chrome.

[2] cr-sqlite is an interesting project using CRDTs to sync state around. However I still believe that for many production use-cases you want a ultimate server source of truth.

[3] Replicache is still the best closed source solution I know of.

[1] - https://github.com/rhashimoto/wa-sqlite [2] - https://github.com/vlcn-io/cr-sqlite [3] - https://replicache.dev/

Mycelite: SQLite extension to synchronize changes across SQLite instances | Jun 2023

Expand Context ↕

cr-sqlite [0] is another option. It has the added benefit of being able to run in the browser (persisting to IndexedDB a la absurd-sql, though it uses a fork of wa-sqlite [1]). In theory it could also persist to the Origin Private Filesystem via SQLite's official impl, though switching doesn't seem to be strictly better [2]. A con is that it doesn't enforce foreign key constraints (though of course you can still do joins). Cr-sqlite also has better documentation about what CRDTs it supports than Mycelite [3], which is something I brought up in a recent thread [4](which might have triggered this post). I'm personally using cr-sqlite in an Anki clone I'm building [5] and have only positive things to say about cr-sqlite and its maintainer.

[0] https://github.com/vlcn-io/cr-sqlite/

[1] https://github.com/rhashimoto/wa-sqlite/

[2] https://github.com/rhashimoto/wa-sqlite/discussions/63

[3] https://github.com/vlcn-io/cr-sqlite/#how-does-it-work

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36473772

[5] https://github.com/AlexErrant/Pentive