PRIVATE · DECENTRALIZED · END-TO-END ENCRYPTED

Message privately.
Own your identity.

Owli is messaging with no account, no central server, and no company holding your data — because there isn't one. Your identity is a keypair you generate yourself, and every message is encrypted before it ever leaves your device.

Launch Owli See how it works

No accounts

No email, no phone number, no signup form.

No central servers

Owli has no backend to breach or subpoena - relays only ever see encrypted data.

No company

Not a business collecting or selling anything about you.

Your keypair

Your identity is math you hold, not an account someone else controls.

What Owli actually is

Owli is a messaging app built on Nostr, an open protocol with no central server — messages travel through independent relays that only ever see encrypted data, never your conversation. Owli adds a private-messaging layer on top: end-to-end encryption, forward secrecy, group chats, and — because Nostr and Bitcoin share the same open, permissionless design — the option to send real Bitcoin or negotiate a trade with a contact, entirely inside the same private channel.

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End-to-end encrypted

Every message is locked with a key only you and the recipient hold, before it ever leaves your device.

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Forward secrecy

Conversations upgrade automatically to a Double Ratchet — a new key per message, the same core idea Signal uses.

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Decentralized

Runs on the open Nostr network across independent relays — not a server Owli operates or controls.

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Private groups

Group chats ride on the same private, encrypted channels as one-to-one messages — no group server, no shared room key.

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Real Bitcoin, real privacy

Zap a contact real sats over Lightning, or negotiate a private trade — Owli never touches or holds your money.

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Hidden-in-plain-sight tool

The built-in Sten tool hides text inside an ordinary-looking emoji, for when a message shouldn't announce itself.

Who's Owli actually for?

From people who just want a normal conversation to stay normal, to journalists, activists, and anyone whose safety depends on privacy actually holding up.

See who it helps →

Our mission

  1. Privacy by architecture. Privacy isn't a setting or a promise, it's built into how the app works.
  2. Private messaging. Your conversations are end-to-end encrypted, readable only by you and the person you're talking to.
  3. End-to-end encryption. Encryption and decryption happen only on your devices, never in between.
  4. Decentralized. Owli runs on the open Nostr protocol across independent relays, not a server Owli operates.
  5. No central servers. There's no Owli backend. Relays just pass encrypted data along; they can't read it.
  6. No company. Owli isn't a business collecting or selling your data.
  7. You own your account. Your identity is a keypair you generate yourself, not an account tied to an email or phone number.
  8. Keypair authentication. Access means proving you hold the private key, not a password stored somewhere for someone to leak.
  9. We can't hand over your data. There's nothing to subpoena or breach, because Owli never has your data in the first place.
  10. Full user control. Export, wipe, or walk away with your data whenever you want, entirely on your terms.

Ready to try it?

Create an identity in under a minute. No email, no phone number — just a keypair only you hold.

Launch Owli