| ▲ | dtkav 4 days ago | |
I'm building a file-over-app local-first app call Relay [0] (it makes Obsidian real-time collaborative) and I agree with you. We have a business model that I think is kind of novel (I am biased) -- we split our service into a "global identity layer"/control plane and "Relay Servers" which are open source and self-hostable. Our Obsidian Plugin is also open source. So while we have a SaaS, we encourage our users to self-host on private networks (eg. tailscale) so that we are totally unable to see their documents and attachments. We don't require any network connection between the Relay Server and our service. Similar to tailscale, the global identity layer provides value because people want SSO and straightforward permissions management (which are a pain to self-host), but running the Relay Server is dead simple. So far we are getting some traction with businesses who want a best-in-class writing experience (Obsidian), google-docs-like collaboration, but local-first. This is of particular interest to companies in AI or AI safety (let's not send our docs to our competitors...), or for compliance/security reasons. [0] https://relay.md | ||
| ▲ | Ingon 4 days ago | parent [-] | |
In some ways this reminds me of what I'm trying to do with connet [0] - give users the choice to completely self-host (all is open source), identity host (e.g. control server as cloud solution, host relays themselves) or even full cloud [1]. | ||