CfP for Local-first Conf 2026 is open. Adam and Johannes discuss this year’s conference themes.

Mentioned in podcast:

• Adam Wiggins: x.com/_adamwiggins_ / adamwiggins.com
• Local-First Conf 2026

Links:

•  Website: localfirst.fm
• X/Twitter: x.com/localfirstfm
• YouTube: youtube.com/@localfirstfm

In this special episode, together with Adam Wiggins and James Arthur, we’re excited to announce the first Sync Conf in San Francisco in November.

Mentioned in podcast:

• James Arthur: x.com/thruflo / bsky.app/profile/thruflo
• Adam Wiggins: x.com/_adamwiggins_ / adamwiggins.com
• SyncConf

Links:

•  Website: localfirst.fm
• X/Twitter: x.com/localfirstfm
• YouTube: youtube.com/@localfirstfm

Thank you to Jazz for supporting the podcast.

The guest of this episode is Adam Fish, co-founder and CEO of Ditto, a end-to-end syncing platform with a focus on resilient connectivity. In this conversation Adam shares the origin story of Ditto, his prior related work on Realm and the hard networking problems that Ditto is solving.

Mentioned in podcast:

• Adam Fish: X + GitHub
• Realm
• Ditto

Links:

•  Website: localfirst.fm
• X/Twitter: x.com/localfirstfm
• YouTube: youtube.com/@localfirstfm

Thank you to Jazz for supporting the podcast.

The guest of this episode is Tanner Linsley, creator of the TanStack ecosystem including projects such as React Query and TanStack Router. This episode will talk about the newest project, TanStack DB and explore the problems it’s trying to solve and how it works.

Mentioned in podcast:

• Tanner Linsley: X + GitHub
• TanStack
• TanStack Query
• TanStack DB

Links:

•  Website: localfirst.fm
• X/Twitter: x.com/localfirstfm
• YouTube: youtube.com/@localfirstfm

Thank you to Jazz for supporting the podcast.

The guest of this episode is Ben Holmes, a senior web developer and educator known for his whiteboard videos. After having spent most of his career building server-centric applications, Ben recently explored local-first software by building a simple sync engine which we talk through in-depth. 

Mentioned in podcast:

• Ben Holmes: Website + X + YouTube + Bluesky + GitHub
• Astro
• Simple Sync Engine
• Warp
• Stop Building Databases by Carl Sverre
• SQLSync
• Graft

Links:

•  Website: localfirst.fm
• X/Twitter: x.com/localfirstfm
• YouTube: youtube.com/@localfirstfm

Thank you to Jazz for supporting the podcast.

This episode's guest is Sujay Jayakar, co-founder of Convex and early engineer at Dropbox. In this conversation, Sujay shares the story of how the sync engine powering Dropbox was initially built and later redesigned to address all sorts of distributed systems problems 

Mentioned in podcast:

• Sujay Jayakar: X + GitHub + Bluesky + Linkedin
• Convex
• Dropbox
• Tech Talk on Dropbox’s Architecture
• Rewriting the heart of our sync engine
• Testing sync at Dropbox
• How Convex Works
• A Map of Sync
• An Object Sync Engine for Local-first Apps

Links:

•  Website: localfirst.fm
• X/Twitter: x.com/localfirstfm
• YouTube: youtube.com/@localfirstfm

Thank you to Jazz for supporting the podcast.

The guest of this episodeis Paul Butler, founder of Jamsocket and creator of the Y-Sweet project. This conversation will delve into building vs buying a sync engine and explore the various projects behind Jamsocket including Plane, Y-Sweet and ForeverVM.

Mentioned in podcast:

• Paul Butler: Website + X
• Jamsocket
• Learn Yjs
• Y-Sweet
• Plane
• ForeverVM
• You might not need a CRDT
• AI as a Player in Multiplayer
• Browsertech Digest Trip Report: Local First Conf
• Browsertech Digest: Encrypting offline storage for local-first apps
• Browsertech Digest: Figma is a File Editor
• The WebAssembly App Gap

Links:

•  Website: localfirst.fm
• X/Twitter: x.com/localfirstfm
• YouTube: youtube.com/@localfirstfm

Thank you to ElectricSQL and Jazz for supporting the podcast.

The guest of this episode is Seph Gentle, a prolific software researcher who is behind projects such as the new eg-walker paper and ShareJS, one of the oldest local-first open source projects. Before, Seph also co-created Google Wave over 10 years ago which will be explored in-depth in this episode.

Mentioned in podcast:

• Seph Gentle: Website + X
• CRDTs are the future
• Collaborative Text Editing with Eg-Walker
• Hammock Driven Development - Rich Hickey

Links:

•  Website: localfirst.fm
• X/Twitter: x.com/localfirstfm
• YouTube: youtube.com/@localfirstfm

Thank you to ElectricSQL for supporting the podcast.

The guest of this episode is Adam Wulf, the engineer and solopreneur behind Muse, a local-first canvas-based tool for thought. This conversation will get trough the evolution of Muse as a product, company and people who made it, reflecting on the joys and struggles of building software as a team of one. Later, the conversation will dive deep into topics such as analytics and distribution of a local-first app. 

Mentioned in podcast:

• Adam Wulf: Website + Bluesky + Mastodon + GitHub
• Muse + Bluesky + X
•  Muse Discord community 
•  Download Muse
• Setapp
• Muse Setapp launch
• Rebuilt iPhone app 
• Adam Wiggins' Retrospective
• Muse Sync at Programming Local First Workshop – ECOOP’22

Links:

•  Website: localfirst.fm
• X/Twitter: x.com/localfirstfm
• YouTube: youtube.com/@localfirstfm

Thank you to Convex and ElectricSQL for supporting the podcast.

The guest of this episode is Brooklyn Zelenka, a local-first researcher and creator of various projects including UCAN and Beehive. This conversation, will go deep on authorization and access control in a decentralized, local-first environment and explore this topic by learning about UCAN and Beehive. Later, the conversation will also diving into Beelay, a new generic sync server implementation developed by Ink & Switch. 

Mentioned in podcast:

• Brooklyn Zelenka: Website + GitHub + Bluesky + Mastodon
• Messaging Layer Security (MLS)
• Messaging layer security: Encrypting a group chat
• TreeKEM
• Group Messaging for Secure Asynchronous Collaboration by Matthew A. Weidner
• Beehive lab notebook
• UCAN Working Group
• UCAN - Be in control of your auth: Brooklyn Zelenka (Local-First Conf)
• Automerge
• WNFS Working Group
• Robust Composition: Towards a Unified Approach to Access Control and Concurrency Control by Mark Samuel Miller
• SPKI Certificate Theory
• Edwards-Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA)
• Comparison of Symmetric Encryption Methods

Links:

•  Website: localfirst.fm
• X/Twitter: x.com/localfirstfm
• YouTube: youtube.com/@localfirstfm

Thank you to Convex and ElectricSQL for supporting the podcast.

This is a special episode which was recorded as a Twitter space conversation between Gordon Brander, Peter Van Hardenberg, and Jess Martin.
This conversation explores the ideas and trade offs of apps versus files.

Mentioned in podcast

• Gordon Brander 
• Peter van Hardenberg
• Jess Martin

Links:

•  Website: localfirst.fm
• X/Twitter: x.com/localfirstfm
• YouTube: youtube.com/@localfirstfm