Real Differences between OT and CRDT in Building Co-Editing Systems and Real World Applications
This addresses the problem of misinformation in co-editing system design for researchers and practitioners, clarifying the practical differences between OT and CRDT to guide better technology choices.
The paper tackles the discrepancy between claims of CRDT superiority over OT for co-editing systems and the reality that OT remains dominant in industry, by conducting a critical review that refutes CRDT claims on correctness and complexity. It reveals that OT is still the preferred choice in real-world applications, with CRDT rarely used in working co-editors.
OT (Operational Transformation) was invented for supporting real-time co-editors in the late 1980s and has evolved to become a core technique used in today's working co-editors and adopted in major industrial products. CRDT (Commutative Replicated Data Type) for co-editors was first proposed around 2006, under the name of WOOT (WithOut Operational Transformation). Follow-up CRDT variations are commonly labeled as "post-OT" techniques and have made broad claims of superiority over OT solutions, in terms of correctness, time and space complexity, simplicity, etc. Over one decade later, however, OT remains the choice for building the vast majority of co-editors, whereas CRDT is rarely found in working co-editors. Why? To seek truth from facts, we set out to conduct a comprehensive and critical review of representative OT and CRDT solutions and working co-editors based on them. From this work, we have made important discoveries about OT and CRDT, and revealed facts and evidences that refute CRDT claims over OT on all accounts. We present our discoveries in three related and complementary articles. In prior two articles, we have revealed the similarities of OT and CRDT in following the same general transformation approach in co-editors, and their real differences in correctness and complexity. In this article, we examine the role of building working co-editors in shaping OT and CRDT research and solutions, and consequential differences in the choice between OT and CRDT in real world co-editors and industry products. In particular, we review the evolution of co-editors from research vehicles to real world applications, and discuss representative OT-based co-editors and alternative approaches in industry products and open source projects. Moreover, we evaluate CRDT-based co-editors in relation to published CRDT solutions, and clarify some myths surrounding "peer-to-peer" co-editing.