An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
GUN is an ecosystem of tools that let you build community run and encrypted applications - like an Open Source Firebase or a Decentralized Dropbox.
The Internet Archive and 100s of other apps run GUN in-production.
Multiplayer by default with realtime p2p state synchronization!
Graph data lets you use key/value, tables, documents, videos, & more!
Local-first, offline, and decentralized with end-to-end encryption.
Decentralized alternatives to Zoom, Reddit, Instagram, Slack, YouTube, Stripe, Wikipedia, Facebook Horizon and more have already pushed terabytes of daily P2P traffic on GUN. We are a friendly community creating a free fun future for freedom:
Quickstart
GUN is super easy to get started with:
Try the interactive tutorial in the browser (5min ~ average developer).
Or npm install gun and run the examples with cd node_modules/gun && npm start (5min ~ average developer).
Note: If you don't have node or npm, read this first.
If the npm command line didn't work, you may need to mkdir node_modules first or use sudo.
An online demo of the examples are available here: http://try.axe.eco/
Or write a quick app: (try now in a playground)
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/gun/gun.js"></script>
<script>
// import GUN from 'gun'; // in ESM
// GUN = require('gun'); // in NodeJS
// GUN = require('gun/gun'); // in React
gun = GUN();
gun.get('mark').put({
name: "Mark",
email: "mark@gun.eco",
});
gun.get('mark').on((data, key) => {
console.log("realtime updates:", data);
});
setInterval(() => { gun.get('mark').get('live').put(Math.random()) }, 9);
</script>
Or try something mind blowing, like saving circular references to a table of documents! (play)
cat = {name: "Fluffy", species: "kitty"};
mark = {boss: cat};
cat.slave = mark;
// partial updates merge with existing data!
gun.get('mark').put(mark);
// access the data as if it is a document.
gun.get('mark').get('boss').get('name').once(function(data, key){
// `once` grabs the data once, no subscriptions.
console.log("Mark's boss is", data);
});
// traverse a graph of circular references!
gun.get('mark').get('boss').get('slave').once(function(data, key){
console.log("Mark is the cat's slave!", data);
});
// add both of them to a table!
gun.get('list').set(gun.get('mark').get('boss'));
gun.get('list').set(gun.get('mark'));
// grab each item once from the table, continuously:
gun.get('list').map().once(function(data, key){
console.log("Item:", data);
});
// live update the table!
gun.get('list').set({type: "cucumber", goal: "jumping cat"});
Want to keep building more? Jump to THE DOCUMENTATION!
About
First & foremost, GUN is a community of the nicest and most helpful people out there. So I want to invite you to come tell us about what you are working on & wanting to build (new or old school alike! Just be nice as well.) and ask us your questions directly. :)
Watch the 100 second intro!
The GUN ecosystem stack is a collection of independent and modular tools covering everything from CRDT conflict resolution, cryptographic security & encryption, radix storage serialization, mesh networking & routing algorithms, to distributed systems correctness & load testing, CPU scheduled JSON parser to prevent UI lag, and more!
On that note, let's get some official shout outs covered first:
Support
Thanks to:
Robert Heessels,
Lorenzo Mangani,
NLnet Foundation,
Sam Liu,
Daniel Dombrowsky,
Vincent Woo,
AJ ONeal,
Bill Ottman,
Mike Lange,
Sean Matheson,
Alan Mimms,
Dário Freire,
John Williamson,
Robin Bron,
Elie Makhoul,
Mike Staub,
Bradley Matusiak,
Jeff Cook,
Nico,
Aaron Artille,
Tim Robinson,
Fabian Stamm,
Mike Staub,
Hunter Owens,
Jacob Millner,
Gerrit Balindt,
Gabriel Lemon,
Murage Martin,
Jason Stallings
Join others in sponsoring code: https://www.patreon.com/gunDB !
Ask questions: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/gun ?
Found a bug? Report at: https://github.com/amark/gun/issues ;
Need help? Chat with us: http://chat.gun.eco .
History
GUN was created by Mark Nadal in 2014 after he had spent 4 years trying to get his collaborative web app to scale up with traditional databases.
After he realized Master-Slave database architecture causes one big bottleneck, he (as a complete newbie outsider) naively decided to question the status quo and shake things up with controversial, heretical, and contrarian experiments:
The NoDB - no master, no servers, no "single source of truth", not built with a real programming language or real hardware, no DevOps, no locking, not just SQL or NoSQL but both (all - graphs, documents, tables, key/value).
The goal was to build a P2P database that could survive living inside any browser, and could correctly sync data between any device after assuming any offline-first activity.
Technically, GUN is a graph synchronization protocol with a lightweight embedded engine, capable of doing 20M+ API ops/sec in just ~9KB gzipped size.
Documentation
API reference
Tutorials
Examples
GraphQL
Electron
React & Native
Vue
Svelte
Webcomponents
CAP Theorem Tradeoffs
How Data Sync Works
How GUN is Built
Crypto Auth
Modules
Roadmap
This would not be possible without community contributors, big shout out to:
ajmeyghani (Learn GUN Basics with Diagrams); anywhichway (Block Storage); beebase (Quasar); BrockAtkinson (brunch config); Brysgo (GraphQL); d3x0r (SQLite); forrestjt (file.js); hillct (Docker); JosePedroDias (graph visualizer); JuniperChicago (cycle.js bindings); jveres (todoMVC); kristianmandrup (edge); Lightnet (Awesome Vue User Examples & User Kitchen Sink Playground); lmangani (Cytoscape Visualizer, Cassandra, Fastify, LetsEncrypt); mhelander (SEA); omarzion (Sticky Note App); PsychoLlama (LevelDB); RangerMauve (schema); robertheessels (gun-p2p-auth); rogowski (AXE); sbeleidy; sbiaudet (C# Port); Sean Matheson (Observable/RxJS/Most.js bindings); Shadyzpop (React Na
Read the full README on GitHub