🔥 Stop Wasting Time With REST – Build Real-Time Apps with SQL Over WebSockets!

Let's be honest – REST APIs are starting to feel like fax machines in the age of WhatsApp. We're building rich, collaborative, real-time interfaces, yet still fetching data like it's 1999. It's time to rethink how we design data-driven applications.

In this post, we're diving into a revolutionary approach: using SQL over WebSockets to build blazing-fast, reactive web applications. We'll explore how coupling SQL's expressive querying power with the event-driven nature of WebSockets can elevate your user experience, simplify your backend, and reduce your frontend codebase by a lot.

This technique is real, battle-tested, and achievable today – we’ll see how to do it with ElectricSQL and SQLite + CRDTs + WebSockets.

🧠 TL;DR – What’s the Idea?

• SQL is declarative; you tell it what you want.
• WebSockets are persistent; they give you a channel to push updates.
• CRDTs (conflict-free replicated data types) allow multi-writer sync (even offline!)
• Combine them = pure magic.

Let's look at how you can ship a live collaborative app – like Notion or Figma – without:

• Polling
• Redux spaghetti
• REST endpoints
• Complex backend logic

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🚀 Meet ElectricSQL: Real-Time Sync for SQLite

ElectricSQL is a sync layer for SQLite with WebSocket transport, CRDT support, and automatic reactivity. Think Firebase, but SQL-native, offline-first, and open-source (😲 yes, really!).

⚙️ Stack Overview

• Backend: PostgreSQL + Electric sync service
• Frontend: SQLite (via WASM) + Electric client
• Sync: WebSockets – bi-directional, instant updates

Under the hood:

• You define your schema declaratively using SQL
• Data updates propagate automatically, no REST required
• The frontend runs a live-replicating SQLite DB (!!)

Let me show you how to build a mini Notion-style collaborative notes app using this magic.

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👷 Project: Real-Time Collaborative Notes App in 100 Lines of Code

Here’s a breakdown of a minimal collaborative app.

🧱 Step 1 – Setup ElectricSQL

We’ll use the Electric CLI to scaffold a project:

npx create-electric-app realtime-notes
cd realtime-notes
npm install
npm run dev

Boom – you’ve got a dev server, sync service, and WebSocket pipeline running.

📄 Step 2 – Define Your Schema

Inside electric/schema.sql:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS notes (
  id TEXT PRIMARY KEY,
  content TEXT NOT NULL,
  updated_at TIMESTAMPTZ NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
);

SELECT crsql_as_crr('notes'); -- enable sync

This makes the notes table syncable. ElectricSQL will handle all CRDT magic and syncing logic behind the scenes.

💻 Step 3 – Use SQLite on the Frontend (in your browser!)

ElectricSQL provides a client that runs SQLite in the browser via WASM.

In your React component:

import { ElectricProvider, useElectricQuery } from 'electric-sql/react';
import { useEffect, useState } from 'react';

function NotesApp() {
  const { results, execute, isLoading } = useElectricQuery(
    `SELECT * FROM notes ORDER BY updated_at DESC`
  );

  const [newNote, setNewNote] = useState("");

  const addNote = async () => {
    const id = crypto.randomUUID();
    await execute(
      `INSERT INTO notes (id, content) VALUES (?, ?)`,
      [id, newNote]
    );
    setNewNote("");
  };

  return (
    <div>
      <input
        value={newNote}
        onChange={(e) => setNewNote(e.target.value)}
      />
      <button onClick={addNote}>Add Note</button>

      <ul>
        {results.map(note => (
          <li key={note.id}>{note.content}</li>
        ))}
      </ul>
    </div>
  );
}

This is a real SQLite database running in the browser, updated via WebSockets, and the UI reacts automatically. No Redux, no useEffect data fetching dance, no reloading. It's just... reactive.

📡 Step 4 – Real-Time without REST

Notes are updated in real-time across all clients thanks to the sync protocol and WebSocket connection. Add a note in one tab, it appears instantly on all others.

You didn’t write a single API.

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⚡ What Makes This Amazing?

1. No API Layer: No Express, no FastAPI, nothing. You query what you need.
2. Sync, not Request/Response: Everything is updated via streams.
3. Offline-first: Updates propagate when the connection is restored.
4. CRDTs built-in: Conflicts auto-resolve via deterministic rules.
5. SQL-familiar: Don’t learn a new DSL – this is just SQL.

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🧪 What Are the Caveats?

Let’s get real – this isn’t magic beans (yet):

• You still need Postgres on the backend for source-of-truth (ElectricSQL syncs to it)
• Debugging sync state might be a learning curve
• CRDT merge logic is automatic, but still worth understanding the model
• Larger datasets? You may need to tweak sync scopes (à la GraphQL @live directives)

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🧠 Who Should Use This?

• 💬 Building chat, docs, boards, collab apps
• 📱 Need offline support with minimal backend
• 🧳 Want SQLite on frontend (cross-platform FTW!)
• 🐣 Bootstrapping a SaaS without a full API layer

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📚 Further Reading

• ElectricSQL Docs
• Replicache (a similar sync precursor)
• CRDT Explained: by Ink & Switch
• LiveBlocks, Convex, and other real-time stacks

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✅ Conclusion: Ditch REST for Reactive SQL!

Real-time collaboration doesn’t need a RESTful API maze, Redux boilerplate, or multiple database layers. You can:

• Write SQL once
• Sync to frontends in real-time
• Get offline support + conflict resolution

With ElectricSQL and SQL over WebSockets, we’re entering a new era of reactive programming. And it’s much simpler than you think.

So maybe the real question is:

Why are you still writing REST endpoints? 🤔

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