Comparisons
Peerborne occupies a specific niche: encrypted, peer-to-peer CRDT document collaboration with open-source libraries. This page compares it to related projects to help you understand when Peerborne is the right choice.
Peerborne vs Yjs (standalone)
Section titled “Peerborne vs Yjs (standalone)”Yjs is a high-performance CRDT library for shared editing. It provides shared types (Y.Map, Y.Array, Y.Text), network-agnostic sync, and an ecosystem of network and persistence providers. Encryption, authentication, access control, and provider selection remain application choices.
| Peerborne | Yjs (standalone) | |
|---|---|---|
| CRDT | Adapts Yjs or Automerge | Built-in CRDT runtime |
| Encryption | AES-GCM by default, BeeKEM key sharing | Application responsibility |
| Authentication | ECDSA P-384 signing (optional; can be disabled with enableSigning: false); UCAN helpers exist but are not integrated into the document change path | Application responsibility |
| Access control | Reader/writer ACL with cryptographic enforcement | Application responsibility |
| Storage | Helia/IPFS (IndexedDB in browser) | Application responsibility (y-indexeddb plugin) |
| Networking | libp2p (WebSocket, WebRTC, WebTransport, GossipSub) | y-websocket, y-webrtc providers |
| Peer discovery | Bootstrap, Kademlia DHT, AutoNAT | Application responsibility |
Peerborne is a good choice when you need encryption, signing, and access control out of the box. Use Yjs standalone when you already have your own auth, transport, and encryption layers.
Peerborne vs Automerge (standalone)
Section titled “Peerborne vs Automerge (standalone)”Automerge is a CRDT library with a JSON-like document model and transport-agnostic sync protocol. Automerge Repo adds storage and networking through configurable adapters; encryption and access control remain application concerns.
| Peerborne | Automerge (standalone) | |
|---|---|---|
| Data model | Adapts Automerge or Yjs | JSON-like CRDT documents |
| Sync transport | libp2p + GossipSub | Automerge-repo (WebSocket, HTTP) |
| Encryption at rest | AES-GCM per document by default | Application responsibility |
| Key exchange | BeeKEM for dynamic groups | Application responsibility |
| Rich text | Via Yjs adapter | Via Automerge Text type |
Peerborne wraps Automerge documents with encryption and access control. If you only need the CRDT merge semantics, use Automerge directly.
Peerborne vs Liveblocks
Section titled “Peerborne vs Liveblocks”Liveblocks is a managed realtime collaboration platform. It provides presence, comments, notifications, and CRDT-based storage as a hosted service.
| Peerborne | Liveblocks | |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Peer-to-peer with relay infrastructure | Client-server (Liveblocks backend) |
| Deployment | Self-hosted (you run relays) | Managed service (Liveblocks cloud) |
| Data sovereignty | Full control (encrypted on your infrastructure) | Data stored on Liveblocks servers |
| Encryption model | Document payloads are end-to-end encrypted; connection and traffic metadata remain visible | Encrypted in transit (server sees data) |
| Offline behavior | IndexedDB-backed Helia/IPFS storage; partition/rejoin recovery is not yet verified end to end | Yjs + IndexedDB support is available after initial load |
| Pricing | Open source (MIT) | Free tier + paid plans |
| Project status | Initial release; not production-ready | Established managed service |
| AI collaboration features | Not included | AI comments, AI copilots |
Use Liveblocks for production collaborative UIs with presence, comments, and rich-text when you are comfortable with a managed service. Use Peerborne when you need end-to-end encryption and data sovereignty, or when you want to own your infrastructure.
Peerborne vs RxDB
Section titled “Peerborne vs RxDB”RxDB is a local-first NoSQL database for JavaScript. It stores JSON documents locally, provides reactive queries (RxJS observables), and syncs with backend servers via replication plugins.
| Peerborne | RxDB | |
|---|---|---|
| Data model | CRDT documents (Yjs/Automerge) | JSON documents with schemas |
| Query language | IndexManager (full-text + blind indexes) | Mango/MongoDB query syntax |
| Sync model | Peer-to-peer (libp2p) | Client-server replication |
| Backend | Relay nodes (stateless) | RxServer, CouchDB, GraphQL, Firebase, Supabase, etc. |
| Encryption | End-to-end (AES-GCM per document by default) | Field-level encryption plugin |
| Convergence | CRDT (Yjs/Automerge) | CRDT plugin + conflict handlers |
| Framework support | React, Redux | React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, Node.js, Expo |
| Project status | Initial release; not production-ready | Established project |
RxDB is an established local-first database with broad backend support. Peerborne is focused on encrypted peer-to-peer CRDT collaboration without a central database. They solve different problems.
Peerborne vs Jazz
Section titled “Peerborne vs Jazz”Jazz is a local-first relational database with row-level permissions and real-time sync. Jazz v2 is a public alpha with hosted and self-hosted database-server options.
| Peerborne | Jazz | |
|---|---|---|
| Data model | CRDT documents | Relational tables with schemas |
| Sync model | Peer-to-peer (libp2p) | Client-server (Jazz Cloud or self-hosted) |
| Permissions | Cryptographic ACL (reader/writer keys) | Server-enforced row-level policies |
| Encryption | Document payloads are end-to-end encrypted | Server is trusted for access control; the v2 design scopes E2E encryption to selected sensitive fields |
| Server | Relay nodes (pass-through) | Jazz sync server (stateful) |
| Framework support | React, Redux | React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, Expo |
| Project status | Initial release; not production-ready | Public alpha (Jazz v2) |
Jazz v2 provides a relational model and managed or self-hosted sync infrastructure. Peerborne focuses on encrypted CRDT documents and user-operated peer-to-peer networking. Both are early-stage projects that require careful evaluation.
Peerborne vs Electric Sync
Section titled “Peerborne vs Electric Sync”Electric Sync is a read-path sync engine that streams selected Postgres data to local clients over HTTP.
| Peerborne | Electric Sync | |
|---|---|---|
| Sync direction | Bidirectional (peers read and write) | Primarily read-path sync (writes go through your API) |
| Source of truth | CRDT merge (no central authority) | Postgres (server is authoritative) |
| Data model | CRDT documents | Postgres tables with Shapes |
| Schema | Schema-less (CRDT types) | Postgres DDL |
| Encryption | End-to-end | Server-side (you control Postgres access) |
| Offline | IndexedDB-backed Helia/IPFS storage; partition/rejoin recovery is not yet verified end to end | Depends on the client stack, such as PGlite or TanStack DB |
| Deployment | Self-hosted peer, relay, and bootstrap infrastructure | Electric Cloud or self-hosted sync service |
Electric Sync fits applications that already use Postgres and need a read-path sync engine. Peerborne is designed for peer-to-peer document collaboration without a central database.
When to choose Peerborne
Section titled “When to choose Peerborne”Peerborne stands out when you need:
- End-to-end encrypted peer-to-peer documents — relay and bootstrap infrastructure does not see document plaintext, though connection and traffic metadata remain visible
- No central database server — your application has no backend database at all
- Full control over infrastructure — you run the relay nodes, you hold the keys
- Composable libraries — use only the packages you need, not a monolithic platform
- Open-source transparency — every layer is inspectable and modifiable
If any of the projects above matches your requirements more closely, use it — most are more mature and have larger communities. Peerborne is exploring a specific design point: encrypted CRDT documents that sync between peers without a trusted central database, while self-hosted relay infrastructure may remain in the data path.