There is no formal distinction between an OT and CRDT algorithm.
It's true that the most popular OT systems have a central server -- but there exist OT algorithms without a central server.
It's also true that CRDT algorithms tend to require too much memory usage to be practical -- but there exist CRDT algorithms with bounded memory.
There are even algorithms that can be equally called OT and CRDT.
No, CRDTs and Operational Transforms are not the same at all.
Re:CRDTs: The Hard Parts [video]
by heavenlyblue on Saturday July 11, 2020 @07:07PM
(#23806978)
Well, so OT is the same as CRDT except that you also have a centralised server that decides the merge conflicts.
The linked video makes a clear distinction that OT and CRDT are different, as OT has the idea of a centralised coordinator to ensure consistency by mutating the proposed, conflicting operations whereas CRDT uses commutativity to attempt to make conflicting operations an inaccessible state