SMRTR ProgrammingMar 15, 2026lobste.rs

Lies I was Told About Collaborative Editing, Part 2: Why we don't use Yjs

SMRTR summary

Popular collaborative text editing algorithms like Yjs are inappropriate for live collaboration due to performance and implementation challenges. Yjs destroys and recreates entire documents on every keystroke, breaking plugins and making 60fps performance nearly impossible. A simple 40-line alternative using prosemirror-collab provides the same functionality with better performance, easier debugging, and proper schema handling.

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