Automerge
Ranked 2 of 3 CRDT libraries by recommenders
Developers praise its clean API across Rust, JavaScript and C and its proven convergence guarantees for collaborative apps, though critics note it requires learning CRDTs.
Developers praise its clean API across Rust, JavaScript and C and its proven convergence guarantees for collaborative apps, though critics note it requires learning CRDTs.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 50%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Hard to learn, academic setup
“feels still way to academic in it's setup”
Comment from 29 Nov 2025 in “The CRDT Dictionary: A Field Guide to Conflict-Free Replicated Data Types” “Automerge/Yjs require learning CRDTs”
Comment from 27 Nov 2025 in “Show HN: SyncKit – Offline-first sync engine (Rust/WASM and TypeScript)” Shared integration limits with Yjs
“CRDT editor integrations (at least the ones for Yjs and Automerge) are often shockingly sloppy”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Lies I was told about collaborative editing, Part 2: Why we don't use Yjs” “this is a limitation of certain types of CRDTs. Automerge and Yjs both work this way.”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “An Interactive Intro to CRDTs”
Other CRDT libraries people recommend
The two most recommended other CRDT libraries, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 3 CRDT libraries, rankedWhat people said
14 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I think automerge and friends would make for excellent tools for making virtual worlds”
“these libs are geared towards plaintext”
“We have cross-field invariants that merging at the data structure level can't ensure”
“CRDT editor integrations (at least the ones for Yjs and Automerge) are often shockingly sloppy”
“this is a limitation of certain types of CRDTs. Automerge and Yjs both work this way.”
“Many current apps will first download an entire automerge document (with full history)”
“He's behind a lot of the huge improvements to automerge over the last few years.”
“Automerge changed how I think about distributed systems”
“It seems that Automerge offers no way to self-host the service, which is a no-go for many applications.”
“feels still way to academic in it's setup”
“Automerge is an excellent library, with a great API, not just in Rust, but also Javascript and C.”
“their convergence characteristics are formalized, proven, and predictable”
“I've been using Automerge for a while and haven't had to look at any CRDTs.”
“Automerge/Yjs require learning CRDTs”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.