CRDTs: How Distributed Systems Agree Without Asking Permission

CRDTs let distributed replicas merge changes safely without locks or central coordination, so data eventually converges even after offline or conflicting updates.

The article compares state-based, operation-based, and delta-state CRDTs, highlighting how commutative, associative, and idempotent merges make replication reliable.

Simple counter examples like G-Counter and PN-Counter show the core idea in practice.

CRDTs are especially valuable for offline-first apps and collaborative tools, and are already used in systems like Yjs and Automerge.