# Local-First Conf 2025 Reflections > Last week, I attended Local-First Conf in Berlin with 3 other members of the PowerSync team. We all had a blast. Here are some quick thoughts on the conference. - Published: 2025-06-04 - Author: Conrad Hofmeyr - Category: Engineering - Source: https://powersync.com/blog/local-first-conf-2025-reflections --- Last week, I attended [Local-First Conf](https://www.localfirstconf.com/) in Berlin with 3 other members of the PowerSync team. We all had a blast. Here are some quick thoughts on the conference: ## A unique gathering of like-minded people Local-First Conf really stands out amongst the conferences I’ve attended over the years: * The density of talent is very high. The conference brings together a ton of very impressive developers and entrepreneurs. * At many other conferences, there are plenty of people who don’t seem particularly invested. Yet at Local-First Conf, it felt like everyone was passionate and invested in the common denominators of local-first software. You could almost feel the [excitement](https://x.com/ccssmnn/status/1927785836923236694) in the air, and it felt like everyone I spoke to was brimming with [enthusiasm](https://x.com/ItsAndreKoenig/status/1927772684215042237) and ideas. ## And yet it was a “big tent” The attendees were like-minded while also being diverse. The idea of “local-first” brings together: * Academic researchers and industry * Big companies, small companies and individuals * Pre-traction vs post-traction outfits * AI skeptics and AI accelerationists * Local-first idealists and SaaS-minded utilitarians This made the event especially interesting, and led to interesting debates. I enjoyed the panel discussion on “The big questions of Local First”. I think [Aaron Boodman](https://x.com/aboodman) is a great spokesperson for the pragmatic view on sync engines as tools to improve user experience in web apps — as opposed to the broader ideals of local-first software around user ownership and longevity. I also applaud Aaron for taking a principled stance on excluding offline writes from [Zero](https://zero.rocicorp.dev/) for now. Aaron argued that Zero should rather not have support for offline writes than offer a half-baked solution — despite this being met with surprise and generating some controversy. I commend their focus. “What is local-first and what is not local-first?” has been a hotly-debated topic over the last couple of years, and I think the community has made some progress on coming to terms on this. The original local-first [idealists](https://www.inkandswitch.com/essay/local-first/) have created a community of people that is very welcoming to divergent ideas, while the same organizing committee behind Local-First Conf is now also launching [SyncConf](https://syncconf.dev/), which will focus mainly on the idea of using sync engines to build better software. People who feel strongly about the original local-first ideals will find a home in Local-First Conf, whereas people who are interested in building better SaaS & PaaS using sync engines will gravitate towards SyncConf. I suspect many folks (including me) will want to attend both. ## The tools are maturing It’s exciting to see that the local-first space is heating up. The tools in the local-first landscape are markedly maturing compared to last year. [PowerSync](https://powersync.com/) has expanded its capabilities significantly. Zero has evolved and tuned their ZVM system for incrementally materialized views for high performance. [ElectricSQL](https://electric-sql.com/) has done great work on creating an incremental adoption path for sync with its [TanStack DB](https://tanstack.com/db/latest) initiative and partnership. [Jazz](https://jazz.tools/) is making great progress. I was very pleased to speak to lots of people at the conference who are already using PowerSync or have come across it and want to try it out. A few of them were surprised that someone from PowerSync was not speaking at the conference, and they asked us why this is the case. Unfortunately, I don’t know why. We tried to get a chance to speak, to no avail. I can understand why it seemed odd to folks that every significant player in the local-first [landscape](https://localfirst.fm/landscape) was speaking at the conference except for PowerSync. Fortunately though, I had a chance to talk to organizer [James Arthur](https://x.com/thruflo?lang=en), who told me that this will be corrected at SyncConf, and hopefully at future installments of Local-First Conf too. ## Research is progressing What’s also awesome is that first-principles research on local-first concepts continues to make great progress. There were great talks from Ink & Switch folks, including on [Keyhive](https://www.inkandswitch.com/keyhive/notebook/) and Beelay. I also really enjoyed Matthew Weidner’s talk on collaborative text editing without CRDTs or OT (he also wrote a [post](https://mattweidner.com/2025/05/21/text-without-crdts.html) about it). ## We are all on the same team I’d like to echo what my colleague [Kobie](https://www.kobiebotha.com/blog/local-first-2025-retro) said: I’d love to see further collaboration amongst the rivals in the local-first tools landscape. Kyle Mathews of ElectricSQL told me that we should work together to grow sync and local-first into a larger movement, since it will benefit all of us. I agree wholeheartedly, and therefore I’m excited to support SyncConf alongside the ElectricSQL folks. There’s a lot that we can learn from each other. I appreciated some of the wisdom shared at the conference. One of my favorite quotes from the talks is from Anselm Eickoff of Jazz: “With users you’re lucky if you see them fail once. With AI you can watch it fail repeatedly.” That cuts deep! I would like to give huge kudos to the folks at Ink & Switch for starting this amazing movement, and to the organizers of Local-First Conf. Together, they have created something truly unique and brought together a fantastic group of people. I’m excited to remain a part of this collective and to contribute to growing it.