# selfstore vs raw IndexedDB
Source: https://selfstore.dev/compare/indexeddb

IndexedDB is the right engine and a hostile API - what you would build on top of it, and what selfstore already built.

## Respect where due

IndexedDB is the correct storage engine in every browser: asynchronous,
transactional, structured-clone-native (real binary data, no base64),
gigabyte-capable. selfstore's working copy **is** IndexedDB. This page is not
IndexedDB versus something else; it is raw usage versus a loop built on it.

## What raw IndexedDB hands you

An API from 2010 with events instead of promises, version-upgrade callbacks
that brick your app when mishandled, transactions that auto-commit under you,
and absolutely nothing above the engine: no backup format, no encryption, no
sync, no status, no multi-tab discipline. Every team that ships on raw IDB
ends up writing the same five hundred lines, then debugging them in
production.

## The layer selfstore adds

| Concern | Raw IndexedDB | selfstore |
| --- | --- | --- |
| API | Event-based, version upgrades | Two functions: gather() and apply() |
| Backup | Build your own format | Spec'd encrypted ZIP, one fluent call |
| Encryption | DIY WebCrypto | AES-256-GCM + Argon2id, in a worker |
| Sync | None | Deterministic HLC merge, five strategies |
| Multi-tab | DIY locks | Web Lock + BroadcastChannel, built in |
| Schema evolution | onupgradeneeded | schemaVersion + migrate(), SCHEMA_TOO_NEW guard |
| Status for the UI | None | Headless descriptor |

## Use raw IndexedDB (or a query wrapper) when

- You have a **large, queryable dataset**: tens of thousands of records,
  indexes, cursors, range scans. selfstore's snapshot model is deliberately
  whole-state and memory-bound; it is not a query engine. (For that need,
  also look at [Dexie](https://selfstore.dev/compare/dexie), which we recommend without irony.)

## Use selfstore when

- The job is "persist my app's state, durably, privately, portably", not
  "query a million rows".
- You want the user to hold a real backup file, and maybe open the same data
  on a second device, without operating servers.

The two coexist fine: keep a big Dexie/IDB dataset for querying, and let
selfstore own the app-state loop next to it.

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