I’m working on a web app for shared document editing with features similar to Google Docs. I need some advice on which API to use. Here’s what I’m looking for:
Full-featured editor (thinking about OpenOffice, Google Docs, or Microsoft Office Web Apps APIs)
Real-time collaboration and syncing for multiple users
Custom server storage for edited documents
Does anyone know of an API that can do all this? I’m not sure if I’m overlooking any capabilities of the APIs I mentioned.
I’d really appreciate any suggestions or insights. Thanks in advance for your help!
Have you considered looking into Etherpad? It’s an open-source collaborative editor that might fit your requirements. I’ve used it for a project before, and it offers real-time collaboration, customizable plugins, and can be self-hosted.
The API is quite flexible, allowing integration with your own storage solution. While it may not have all the bells and whistles of Google Docs, it’s highly customizable and could serve as a solid foundation for your project. Building additional features atop it might be necessary, but it could save considerable time compared to a ground-up approach.
As someone who’s been in your shoes, I’d suggest looking into Firepad. It’s a powerful open-source collaborative text editor that I’ve used in a similar project. It leverages Firebase for real-time syncing, which handles the heavy lifting of collaboration seamlessly.
Firepad offers a rich text editor out of the box, and you can extend it with custom functionality. The best part? It’s designed to work with your own storage solution, so you’re not locked into a specific ecosystem.
While it might not have all the advanced features of Microsoft Office Web Apps, it’s incredibly flexible and performant. You’ll likely need to build some additional features, but the core collaborative editing functionality is rock-solid. Plus, the developer community is quite active, so you can find help if you run into issues.
hey swiftcoder, you might wanna check out CKEditor 5. it’s pretty solid for collab editing and has a nice API. i’ve used it before and it integrates well with custom storage. not as fancy as google docs but gets the job done. real-time sync works great too. worth a look imo