Building Offline-First Apps with PouchDB and CouchDB

The Problem

Field workers on the Fefifo agri-tech platform worked in areas with little to no internet connectivity. A standard REST API-based app would be completely unusable in these conditions.

The Solution: Offline-First Architecture

Instead of building an app that fails gracefully without internet, we built one that works natively offline and syncs when connectivity is restored.

How PouchDB + CouchDB Sync Works

PouchDB runs inside the React Native app as a local database. CouchDB runs on the server. When connectivity is available, they sync automatically — bidirectionally.

// Initialize local PouchDB instance
const localDB = new PouchDB('fefifo_local');

// Set up sync with remote CouchDB
const sync = localDB.sync('https://your-couchdb-server/fefifo', {
  live: true,
  retry: true
}).on('change', (info) => {
  console.log('Sync change:', info);
}).on('error', (err) => {
  console.error('Sync error:', err);
});

Conflict Resolution

When the same document is edited offline on two devices, CouchDB creates a conflict. We handled this by always preferring the most recent edit based on timestamp.

Lessons Learned

• Design your data model for sync from day one — retrofitting is painful
• Keep documents small and focused — large documents cause slow syncs
• Always show the user their sync status clearly in the UI