Make software for your people.
Build thoughtful apps for yourself and the people around you.
Apps that work offline, feel at home on your devices, and work together.
Playbit takes care of the infrastructure.
Build your owncity builder game
Personal software needs a better foundation
- No servers to maintain
- Local-first means apps talk directly with each other. Our service gives you backup
- Own your data
- All your data is stored locally in open formats
- End-to-end encrypted
- Playbit can’t see your encrypted data; you hold the key, we back up encrypted data
- Native user experience
- Run your app on iOS or macOS, with more platforms coming
- Low floor, high ceiling
- If your creation outgrows Playbit, link our open-source libraries into your software
- Runs everywhere
- An open-source runtime that is available on many platforms
- Multiplayer built in
- Your data syncs in real time across devices and participants with low latency
Questions & answers
- Can I build on system x?
- Playbit developer tools are currently only available for macOS 15 and later. We will bring Playbit to other platforms as soon as we can.
- Can a friend try my app?
- Copy a session link and send it to a friend. Playbit fetches the right build of the app and brings them into the same shared session.
- What’s a session?
- A session is a place to use an app together, like a game lobby or a group call. Every time you open a Playbit app, you’re in a session. You can use it on your own or invite people by sharing its link. Everyone who joins runs the app on their own device and takes part in the same session.
- What about AI agents?
The supplied agent skill, built-in MCP server, and JSON-producing pb CLI support agent-driven development. Give the agent an application brief, then iterate on the result through those interfaces.
For example, you can ask your bot to “build a two-player boat racer. Give each boat a different color” and it can show you the app visually as it’s being built
- How is data stored?
- Your app’s data is stored in volumes. A volume is a file system that can hold files and structured data. Its contents are stored locally and is end-to-end encrypted.
- How do volumes work?
- Each volume has one owner, who can share access with other people. Every app session uses a root volume as its default home for data. Changes synchronize between participants, and the data persists beyond the session.
- How can I store structured data?
- Playbit offers two different kinds of multiplayer-aware databases: A fundamental key-value store and a structured document database, the latter with full collaborative text editing. Both are ACID and both can have merge strategies fully customized.
- How does it run on iOS?
- Your app runs inside Playbit for iOS. The same WebAssembly program runs on each supported platform, with Playbit providing access to the host system. You’ll still want to design your interface for the screen sizes and input methods people will use.
- Can I change an app while people are using it?
- Yes. While developing, changes to your code can hot reload for everyone in the session. You and a friend can keep playing your game while you change how it works.