Hocuspocus is a plug-and-play Yjs CRDT WebSocket backend for real-time collaborative apps, self-hostable under MIT license.
Key Takeaways
Built on Yjs CRDT; handles conflict-free real-time sync via WebSocket with an extension model (e.g., @hocuspocus/extension-sqlite).
Setup is minimal: import Server, attach extensions like SQLite, call server.listen() on a chosen port.
Managed cloud option available via Tiptap Collab for teams that do not want to run infrastructure.
MIT licensed; backed by ueberdosis (Tiptap team) with sponsors including Ahrefs, Outline, and Gamma.
Hacker News Comment Review
Data-privacy concerns around the hosted Tiptap Collab offering were raised, specifically whether document content could be accessed under legal compulsion.
The team’s position is that self-hosting Hocuspocus is the answer for privacy-sensitive use cases, which is the primary motivation for keeping it open source.
Notable Comments
@philipisik: confirmed open-sourcing Hocuspocus was intentional to let privacy-conscious customers avoid the SaaS trust problem entirely.
