Shipped: Solving the Local-First Backup Paradox (You asked, we built it)
Two weeks ago, in the open-fintech-builders group, @VanessaPaul asked the question that breaks most local-first architectures:
"How do you handle long-term backups if everything stays local?"
It’s the classic tradeoff: privacy (local storage) usually comes at the cost of resilience (cloud backups).
Lose your device, lose your data.
Sync to a vendor’s cloud, lose your privacy.
We refused to compromise on either.
Today, we’re launching Sovereign Sync to answer that exact problem.
The Solution: Google Drive as a “Dumb” Hard Drive
Instead of spinning up a Postgres database to hoard user data, we built a connector that treats Google Drive as a remote file system.
- The format: raw
JSON
- The auth: client-side only (we never see or store your tokens)
- The logic: the browser remains the source of truth; Drive is cold storage
Pocket Portfolio stays local-first. Drive is just a backup disk.
Why This Matters for Builders
This decouples the app from the database entirely.
That means you can:
- Audit your financial history by opening a file in VS Code
- Inject trades programmatically using the Drive API (Node or Python scripts)
- Switch apps instantly because you own the schema, not us
Your data is no longer trapped behind an API or a proprietary backend.
This feature exists because the community pushed us to solve the backup paradox without reverting to SaaS rent-seeking.
@VanessaPaul — this one is for you. Thanks for keeping us honest.
Try It
Local by default.
Portable by design.
Synced only with consent.