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Ethersync: Peer-to-peer collaborative editing of local text files

https://github.com/ethersync/ethersync
127•blinry•3d ago

Comments

eterps•2d ago
5 points and 0 comments? IMO this looks like a very well researched project, not sure why it went under the radar.
omnimus•9h ago
My bet would be that people confuse it with Etherpad https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite which is quite old stable project so probably not that exciting.
dang•9h ago
Looks like we put it in the second-chance pool (https://news.ycombinator.com/pool, explained at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308), so it got a random placement on HN's front page a couple days later...where it happily resides for the time being.

If anyone is confused by the relativized timestamps, there are explanations here: About the timestamps, there are past explanations here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....

russfink•9h ago
Having trouble finding plugins … mousepad?
shakna•4h ago
Writing a mousepad plugin is actually a bit of a pain.

> Note that you'll need all the Mousepad code to build your plugin, as the headers are not installed. We've never gone so far as to actually expose an API for writing plugins, choosing which headers should be installed and documenting this properly.

Which mostly means that you're on your own.

Whilst building one for Ethersync _should_ be fairly easy (exec and ionotify should get 90% there), without documentation - how do you ensure the text buffer gets updated correctly...? I'm not surprised no one has put this together yet.

xpe•8h ago
This reminds me of Floobits (started around 2013) that offered cross-editor collaboration using centralized servers. It had plugins for Emacs, Vim, Sublime, and others.
xpe•8h ago
Zed also has interesting collaboration features -- editing + voice: https://zed.dev/docs/collaboration

In the early days, Zed's in-editor collaboration features were marketed as a key differentiator. I wonder how many Zed users have used these features on a sustained basis.

bastawhiz•7h ago
Honestly I don't see the value in multiplayer on its own. Where it becomes interesting is when a tool like Zed makes it easy for extension authors to do multiplayer. Let everyone else build the experiences, and let the tool provide the APIs.
dtkav•6h ago
Zed's collaboration tech is amazing, but coding just seems to be less collaborative than e.g. meeting notes.

It's pretty awesome that they were able to use the crdt for agent collab. I've been thinking about something similar for my project.

xpe•8h ago
Obligatory mention of SubEthaEdit: "General purpose plain-text editor for macOS. Widely known for its live collaboration feature."

And, as of 2018, is now open source. Looks like it has had commits as recently as 2022: https://github.com/subethaedit/SubEthaEdit

See also a previous HN discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18550649

blinry•3h ago
We picked our name because of SubEthaEdit (and later, Etherpad)! :)

We keep a table of related project here: https://ethersync.github.io/ethersync/related-projects.html

Ping us if you feel like something's missing! (Looks like we could add Zed, for example.)

dtkav•6h ago
This is awesome! I've been working on something similar but focused on Obsidian called Relay [0].

I'm super inspired by this. We use yjs with a hub (y-sweet) and spoke topology but I've been meaning to check out Iroh and make the hub into a "super peer".

[0] https://relay.md

kruffalon•4h ago
It warms my old heart when projects use the AGPL (or GPL) licence.

It's a "small" thing to do that tells me that you're not just waiting for VC but actually really care about your work and the world.

(I'm not saying that MIT or other similar licences are used exclusively by people that don't care, I understand that sometimes you just don't have the bandwidth)

conradev•2h ago
I guess I’m curious how it applies here. The plugins communicate over a socket, and then the plugins are loaded into an editor. I assume the editor doesn’t need to be AGPL, because nvim is Apache 2 and VS Code is MIT.

But does the plugin need to be AGPL? Does it also have to be “replaceable” where a static build of nvim would violate the license? Can someone bundle a custom written client into a proprietary editor?

yunohn•41m ago
I don’t understand where you’re saying. A/GPL generally just means corporate won’t use your solution, and that others won’t integrate and as such, monetize your solution. You can still be VC funded and monetize your own GPL code yourself? The Zed editor is a great example.
register•2m ago
I don't understand. What would prevent the authors from guaranteeing the VCs re-licensing under a different model?
ethan_smith•4h ago
Does Ethersync use CRDTs under the hood for conflict resolution, or does it implement a different approach to handle concurrent edits?
arendtio•3h ago
It uses automerge [1], so I strongly assume they use CRDTs.

[1] https://automerge.org/

blinry•3h ago
Yep! Daemons on multiple computers speak the Automerge sync protocol. Between daemon and editors, we use a "one-sided operational transform" approach, in an attempt to offload as much work as possible into the daemon (and out of the plugin). If you're interested, you can learn more about Ethersync's architecture in the documentation: https://ethersync.github.io/ethersync/

In addition, we keep a directory of "Architectural Design Decisions" here, which go more into depth: https://github.com/ethersync/ethersync/tree/main/docs/decisi...

There's also a 10-minute talk from this year's FOSDEM: https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-4890-ethe...

majkinetor•4h ago
Fantastic. Finally, something that can be used outside the browser.

I hope there are plans to support more OS.

eggsandbeer•3h ago
Interesting -- compatible with agentic systems? Collaborative editing with an AI?
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So ,a glorified TMUX?

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Ethersync: Peer-to-peer collaborative editing of local text files

https://github.com/ethersync/ethersync
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