| This is a question I'm probably better suited to answer than anyone in the world, since I used to work on Holochain in 2018 and I've worked on Urbit since 2019. They solve a similar set of problems from completely different directions. Chiefly, they are both trying to create infrastructure for running distributed programs that run primarily on the devices of the user in such a way that the user has total control over their own data and not in a horribly inefficient way like blockchain-based dApps. Urbit has a bottom-up approach while Holochain has a top-down approach. Urbit is about building powerful infrastructure for individual users to manage their own data and, from there, networks of users may be built that can run their own apps and share data amongst themselves however they like. Holochain instead starts by focusing on building networks of users that share data in a prescribed fashion, and how each user manages their own data outside of Holochain is up to them. I see them as complementary, almost dual to each other. Urbit is about creating infrastructure for individuals that can then form networks, while Holochain is about forming networks that individuals can then join. Urbit starts as close to bare metal as you can get (its a whole operating system, programming language, and assembly-level instruction set) and starts getting thin around userspace, while Holochain lives entirely in userspace. Stack them on top of each other and your entire computer from the GUI all the way down to the processor instruction set is oriented around user data privacy and efficient distributed computing! In a future where both Urbit and Holochain take off, people could use Urbit to manage their personal data and cryptographic property which would be fed into Holochain apps. There would be a bridge between the Urbit PKI and the Holochain PKI so that your identity in one is linked to your identity in the other. Both projects aspire to create something like a "universal interface" along the lines of WeChat, except not a dystopian privacy invasion nightmare. I could write more about this all day. If you have any further questions I'd be happy to answer. I'm mostly excited to have met someone else using Holochain and Urbit in the same sentence. |