# selfstore vs browser-fs-access
Source: https://selfstore.dev/compare/browser-fs-access

browser-fs-access smooths over the File System Access API; selfstore uses that API as one destination among several, and decides everything around it.

## What browser-fs-access is

A small, well-made library from GoogleChromeLabs: `fileOpen()` and `fileSave()`
that use the File System Access API where it exists (Chromium, where you get a
real handle and can write back to the same file) and fall back to
`<input type="file">` and a download elsewhere. It does that one job cleanly and
it is a sensible dependency for any app that touches files.

What it does not do - correctly, since it is not its job - is decide what those
bytes are.

## What selfstore is

The decision about the bytes, and everything after it. A disk file is one of
selfstore's destinations, and connecting one is `store.connectFile()`; what
gets written is the app's whole state as a
[portable encrypted ZIP](https://selfstore.dev/docs/format), what happens next is a debounced
auto-save on every mutation, and what happens when a second device connects the
same file is a deterministic merge rather than an overwrite.

It also handles the parts that only show up in production: the file mode is
Chromium-only, so a browser without it gets a `'manual'` outcome and an honest
download path instead of a broken promise; a desktop shell (Tauri and the like)
can hand its own file calls over once and get a real path that survives the
session; and a handle that needs re-granting surfaces as a typed status with a
`reconnect` action rather than an exception.

| | browser-fs-access | selfstore |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Scope | Open and save dialogs | The storage loop |
| Cross-browser fallback | Yes | Yes, as a reported outcome |
| What is written | Yours to define | A spec'd ZIP of the app state |
| Encryption | No | AES-256-GCM + Argon2id |
| Re-open the same file later | The handle, yours to keep | Remembered and restored |
| Second device | Not in scope | Merged, not overwritten |

## Use browser-fs-access when

- Your app imports or exports a file and that is the whole requirement - an
  image editor saving a PNG, a tool reading a CSV.

## Use selfstore when

- The file is meant to BE the app's storage, which brings the questions the
  picker does not answer: format, encryption, auto-save, re-opening, and what
  happens when the user's other laptop opens the same file.

Map of this site for a model: https://selfstore.dev/llms.txt
Every page in one file: https://selfstore.dev/llms-full.txt