PouchDB works great in NW.js (formerly known as Node-Webkit). Here's how to get started.

• PouchDB NW.js "Hello world" app (using all three adapters!)

There are two ways to use PouchDB in NW.js: as a browser script or as a Node.js module.

By far the easiest way is to use it as a browser script. NW.js is based on Chromium, so PouchDB will work out of the box, since both IndexedDB and WebSQL are supported by Chromium.

In Node.js, PouchDB uses LevelDB via leveldown, which has to be separately compiled for NW.js. Many people have reported problems getting it to build, especially on Windows. Use at your own risk.

Just download pouchdb.js and include it in your index.html. That's it.

<script src="path/to/pouchdb.js"></script>

Now PouchDB is available as a global variable. So you can create an IndexedDB-based PouchDB:

var db = new PouchDB('mydb');

or a WebSQL-based PouchDB:

var db = new PouchDB('mydb', {adapter: 'websql'});

Use whichever one you prefer. They both work the same, although in my experience WebSQL is slightly faster than IndexedDB in Chromium, for most use cases. (NW is based on Chromium.)

You will need to recompile leveldown using nw-gyp. The sample app shows you exactly how to do this.

Basically you just need to run nw-gyp in the node_modules/leveldown directory, including the version of NW you are using:

nw-gyp configure --target=0.8.6 # or whatever version of NW you're using
nw-gyp build

In the sample app, this is accomplished with a postinstall script (see package.json) because that way it's done automatically when you npm install.

After that, to use the LevelDB-based PouchDB, just require it:

var LevelPouchDB = require('pouchdb');
var db = new LevelPouchDB('mydb');

Because the LevelDB-based PouchDB is required whereas the others are attached to window.PouchDB, you can actually use all three adapters simultaneously! Which is kinda neat.