How we sync Postgres to the browser: ElectricSQL for rows…
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How we sync Postgres to the browser: ElectricSQL for rows, Yjs for documents
Author here (I'm building Plain, a GitHub alternative), so flagging the affiliation up front.
The writeup is about treating sync as the substrate instead of adding realtime to features one at a time. Two engines, because there are two kinds of state:
\- Rows (issues, PRs, CI, messages) stream out of Postgres via ElectricSQL as "shapes" over HTTP. The browser holds a live query. Electric is read-path only, so writes go through server functions and reconcile optimistically via a Postgres transaction id
(pg\_current\_xact\_id()) that Electric stamps on the row when it streams back.
\- Document bodies are CRDTs over Yjs/Hocuspocus, since people type into the same paragraph at once. Presence/typing is just Yjs awareness, so no heartbeat table.
I'm honest about the costs in the post too: two stateful services, Postgres on logical replication, and the auth proxy in front of Electric as the obvious choke point. Curious how others have handled the rows-vs-documents split, and where people expect this to strain at scale.
#technology #js #programming #dev
Author here (I'm building Plain, a GitHub alternative), so flagging the affiliation up front.
The writeup is about treating sync as the substrate instead of adding realtime to features one at a time. Two engines, because there are two kinds of state:
\- Rows (issues, PRs, CI, messages) stream out of Postgres via ElectricSQL as "shapes" over HTTP. The browser holds a live query. Electric is read-path only, so writes go through server functions and reconcile optimistically via a Postgres transaction id
(pg\_current\_xact\_id()) that Electric stamps on the row when it streams back.
\- Document bodies are CRDTs over Yjs/Hocuspocus, since people type into the same paragraph at once. Presence/typing is just Yjs awareness, so no heartbeat table.
I'm honest about the costs in the post too: two stateful services, Postgres on logical replication, and the auth proxy in front of Electric as the obvious choke point. Curious how others have handled the rows-vs-documents split, and where people expect this to strain at scale.
#technology #js #programming #dev
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