Flutter Local-First Architecture: A Guide to Building Offline-First Apps

This article explores Flutter's local-first application architecture, prioritizing local data storage and synchronization for superior user experiences. Unlike traditional online-first approaches, local-first architecture designates the local database as the primary data source, ensuring app functionality even offline. The article details the advantages of local-first architecture, the challenges of building a sync engine (including change tracking, conflict resolution, edge cases and error handling, and performance optimization), and demonstrates building a Todo app with Riverpod, Drift, and PowerSync connected to a Supabase backend. These tools simplify building robust offline-capable apps, enhancing user experience.