hakanshehu (u/hakanshehu)

hakanshehu commented on Offline-First Landscape – 2025 marcoapp.io/blog/offline-... · Posted by u/Onavo

jitl · 9 days ago

Depending on your data model, LiveStore is a completely open-source, SQLite based approach for local first sync-y apps: https://livestore.dev/

It's oriented around event sourcing and syncs the events, which get materialized into local table views on clients. It's got pretty slick devtools too.

hakanshehu · 9 days ago

I did look into it back then, but was not very convenient for my use case. Apart from the data model, I wanted to use Yjs for conflict resolution and wanted more direct control over the sync.

p.s Just wanted to say thank you for all the contribution you do here on HN. Colanode (the app I'm building) is an alternative to Notion and I learned a lot about how you (Notion) build things through reading your comments.

hakanshehu commented on Offline-First Landscape – 2025 marcoapp.io/blog/offline-... · Posted by u/Onavo

hakanshehu · 9 days ago

Nice post! I'm building an offline-first collaboration app and went on the route of building a custom sync engine, mainly because the app is open-source and I didn't want to introduce any dependency. I've implemented a simple cursor based sync with Postgres on server and SQLite in client side.

Initially I built only a desktop client, because I didn't like IndexedDB. After the app got into HN, someone recommended to check for OPFS (Origin Private File System).

Now we have a full offline-first app in web using SQLite on top of OPFS. We didn't test it with large scale yet, but so far looks very promising. The good thing is that we use Kysely as an abstraction for performing queries in SQLite which helps us share most of the code across both platforms (electron + web) with some minor abstractions.

You can check the implementation in Github: https://github.com/colanode/colanode

hakanshehu commented on Show HN: Colanode, open-source and local-first Slack and Notion alternative github.com/colanode/colan... · Posted by u/hakanshehu

plextoria · 4 months ago

sadly, app doesn't run on Intel Macs

hakanshehu · 4 months ago

Thanks for pointing it out. Will check our build and release process to fix it.

hakanshehu commented on Show HN: Colanode, open-source and local-first Slack and Notion alternative github.com/colanode/colan... · Posted by u/hakanshehu

alok-g · 4 months ago

Looks nice! Would wait for the documentation to learn more.

How does this compare to Notesnook? I have found that to be the best in terms of getting the details right (However, the last I checked, the documentation for self-hosting was unclear, and there were bugs in data exporting).

https://notesnook.com/

hakanshehu · 4 months ago

Thank you! I haven’t used Notesnook personally, but from their description it focuses mainly on note-taking. Colanode, by contrast, also includes collaboration features such as chat, file sharing, and databases. One other difference is that Notesnook offers end-to-end encryption, whereas Colanode does not (at least for now).

hakanshehu commented on Show HN: Colanode, open-source and local-first Slack and Notion alternative github.com/colanode/colan... · Posted by u/hakanshehu

mdaniel · 4 months ago

I tried booting it up and two things:

- this is just evil. Pure. evil. https://github.com/colanode/colanode/blob/v0.1.3/apps/deskto...

If that's the kind of error handling that you believe in, one should have religious backups of any data placed into this

- It seems to actually puke if one doesn't provide it a live, TLS enabled, SMTP server[2] which (a) WTF (b) isn't present in the docker-compose

Thankfully replacing .verify with return new Promise(() => true) at least let the server start

2: https://github.com/colanode/colanode/blob/v0.1.3/apps/server...

hakanshehu · 4 months ago

Thank you for taking the time to test it and call these issues out. Both points slipped through our refactor/cleanup checklist.

- We’ll replace the current error handling for server sync with something safer and more graceful.

- We’ll make SMTP optional, expose TLS verification as a configurable setting and update the docker-compose.

We’ll make these improvements soon, thanks again for the heads-up.

hakanshehu commented on Show HN: Colanode, open-source and local-first Slack and Notion alternative github.com/colanode/colan... · Posted by u/hakanshehu

badmonster · 4 months ago

Have you thought about adding programmable logic or automations between nodes?

hakanshehu · 4 months ago

We have been thinking for some automation/workflows to be executed on specific events. Do you have any example/use case that you might be interested in?

hakanshehu commented on Show HN: Colanode, open-source and local-first Slack and Notion alternative github.com/colanode/colan... · Posted by u/hakanshehu

handfuloflight · 4 months ago

Would it be possible to allow us to set our own custom fonts and color scheme (without having to fork it)?

hakanshehu · 4 months ago

That's an interesting idea. Didn't plan it, but we could implement some kind of custom theme functionality.

hakanshehu commented on Show HN: Colanode, open-source and local-first Slack and Notion alternative github.com/colanode/colan... · Posted by u/hakanshehu

itomato · 4 months ago

These products are neat, but what about the data?

Notion is a tragedy when it comes to export or migration.

I didn’t see any bragging about the exportability of content from this one, but that’s the main thing I look for now.

hakanshehu · 4 months ago

Hi, thanks for bringing this up! We don’t have export or migration features in place yet, but we are planning to add them. Which export formats would be most useful to you? And when you mention migration, are you thinking about moving data from similar tools into Colanode or vice-versa? If so, which specific tools would you like to be able to migrate to/from?

hakanshehu commented on Show HN: Colanode, open-source and local-first Slack and Notion alternative github.com/colanode/colan... · Posted by u/hakanshehu

frizlab · 4 months ago

Hello! How does this compare to Huly?

hakanshehu · 4 months ago

Hi, thanks for the question! I haven’t used Huly extensively to provide a detailed comparison, but from a quick look (and a test I did some time ago) it seems to take a more opinionated approach: features such as issues, projects, and overall layout are pre-defined. Colanode, by contrast, works like Notion, giving you flexible building blocks so you can model your own workflows and knowledge structures. Huly may be quicker to get started with, while Colanode offers greater adaptability over time (this comes down to personal preference). Another key distinction is tech architecture: Colanode is built around a local-first design, providing full offline support with background syncing. I haven’t found equivalent offline capabilities documented for Huly, even though they may have them.

hakanshehu commented on Show HN: Colanode, open-source and local-first Slack and Notion alternative github.com/colanode/colan... · Posted by u/hakanshehu

regnerba · 4 months ago

Do you have plans for mobile app? It looks really useful but the two places I would use it would both require I mobile app before I could switch to it.

hakanshehu · 4 months ago

Hi, thanks for the question! Yes, we do plan to implement mobile apps, but we don't have a concrete timeline yet. It depends on the limitations and challenges we might face when we implement the same local-first approach as we did in desktop (full offline support, background syncing etc).