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The desktop app

EntityFlow ships an Electron desktop app that reuses the same editor as the web app — same canvas, same export, same behavior. It's ideal for working offline or keeping your schemas entirely on your own machine.

Persistence modes​

The desktop app offers two ways to store diagrams:

  • Default — local storage. Diagrams are stored in the app's local storage for fully offline, single-player use. Nothing leaves your machine and no server is involved.
  • Opt-in — embedded SQLite. Set EF_DESKTOP_MODE=sqlite to run an in-process server backed by an embedded SQLite file, with realtime over loopback. This gives you the full server-backed feature set locally.
# Run the desktop app with the embedded SQLite server
export EF_DESKTOP_MODE=sqlite

Security​

The desktop build is hardened following Electron best practices:

  • Context isolation is enabled.
  • The renderer runs in a sandbox.
  • No Node.js is exposed to the renderer.

Native integration​

The app uses native file dialogs for DBML import and export, so importing and saving schemas feels like any other desktop application.

tip

Choose the default mode for the simplest fully-offline experience, or SQLite mode when you want the server-backed feature set without leaving your machine.

For server-based deployments instead, see Docker Compose and Kubernetes & Helm.