Welcome to the September 2025 CouchDB Digest! This one is short and sweet: we kick off with why “sync” is becoming the word of the moment, see how VLAN-controlled container access enhances CouchDB’s security and get introduced to a CouchDB rules engine.

Blog Articles

• Adam Wiggins shares why “sync” is becoming so popular ahead of SyncConf [Adam Wiggins on their own blog]

• Better understand user goals and frustration when it comes to offline-first media management in Anu Joy’s review of a make-shift solution with Proton [Anu Joy on Android Police]

• Rich Edmonds uses their CouchDB-hosted Obsidian to show how they make local apps even more secure by using dedicated VLAN to control container access [Rich Edmonds on XDA]

• Mark Headd has embarked on building a rules engine using CouchDB [Mark Headd on Civic Innovations and GitHub]
  • Check out the short thread in Slack for technical details

Videos

• If last month’s article about using CouchDB and the blockchain for hygiene traceability caught your attention, join this real-time setup tutorial that integrates CouchDB with Hyper-Ledger Fabric [Hardcore Backbencher on YouTube]

Misc

• In this Reddit post, u/socken23 troubleshoots — and solves — a Cloudflare and CouchDB issue in their self-hosted Obsidian sync [u/socken23 on r/CloudFlare]

Tools

• Benoit Chesneau shares Couchbeam, a CouchDB client library for Erlang applications [@benoitc on X and GitHub]

• Anarion’s virtual CouchDBs, running on Ubuntu24 and provisioned via Microsoft Azure, got some updates in the last month [Anarion Technologies on Microsoft Marketplace]

Thanks for keeping up with CouchDB; see you here again soon!

A lot happened this month in CouchDB land: setting up an instance with Google Cloud got easier, we discover how CouchDB syncs conflicts without CRDTs and learn how CouchDB solves a hygiene safety use-case in hospitals.

Do you have a source or article I missed? Let me know in the comments. 

Blog Articles

• Stephan H. Wissel covers CouchDB authentication using JWKS in-depth on their blog [shared in the CouchDB Slack]

• Though not strictly CouchDB-focused, this article examines why offline-first architecture is a pre-requisite to providing last-mile digital healthcare effectively, and why connectivity assumptions are not the only downfall of always-online solutions [Kaumudi Tiwari on Next Billion]

• If CouchDB is new to you, take a look at some tips on using it with different file systems depending on the OS you use [Neighbourhoodie Blog]

• Get your database started right with a small collection of tips for data modelling and indexing [Neighbourhoodie on DEV]

Videos

• Zixuan Liu & Ahlam Aatif presented offline-first architecture at the Nordic Developer Conference in Oslo this past May; recordings are now up [NDC Conferences on YouTube] 

• DevNami provides a walkthrough to create a CouchDB instance in Google Cloud if you want to preview the steps before starting [DevNami on YouTube]

• This past week Jan Lehnardt showed the local-first community How to Sync Anything while managing conflicts along the way and avoiding CRDTs [Local First Meetups]

• 🇩🇪 Jan was also an invited guest on the German-language Working Draft podcast this month and discussed how CouchDB is suited for local-first and offline-first scenarios; catch the episode on YouTube for auto-generated subtitles [Jan Lehnardt on the Working Draft Podcast]

Misc

• Semra Tebrizcik and their co-authors implement CouchDB as the preferred database to address traceability in hospital hygiene using a distributed ledger [originally published in Applied Sciences; full article available via Research Gate] 

Tools

• Excitingly, the Google Cloud ↔ CouchDB connector received some updates this past month, making it even easier to put CouchDB behind production projects [Google Cloud Integrations Documentation]

I hope August’s developments mean you get even more out of CouchDB. See you here next month!