Why Local-First Apps Haven’t Become Popular?
Why Local-First Apps Haven’t Become Popular?Offline-first apps promise instant loading and privacy, but in practice, very few apps get offline support because getting sync right is surprisingly hard.Marco BambiniSep 22, 2025ShareOffline-first apps sound like the future: instant loading, privacy by default, and no more spinning loaders on flaky connections.But in practice, very few apps get offline support right. Most simply queue changes locally and push them when the network comes back (spoiler: this doesn’t really work). Eventually, users see a scary banner saying “changes may not be saved.”The reason is simple: syncing is hard.When you build a local-first app, you’ve effectively created a distributed system. Multiple devices can mutate data independently, sometimes offline,…
