WHAT IS NOSTR

The open protocol Owli is built on

Nostr isn't a company, an app, or a server you sign up with. It's a small, open set of rules for how a signed message gets from one person to another — and Owli is just one of many clients that speaks it.

You Relay A Relay B Relay C A contact

You sign a message and send it to a handful of relays you've chosen - independently run, none of them Owli's. Your contact's client checks the same (or overlapping) relays and picks it up. No relay has to be trusted, no relay has to be permanent, and no single one can block the conversation - if one disappears tomorrow, you just use the others.

No accounts, just a keypair

Your identity on Nostr is a cryptographic keypair you generate yourself - a public key that's your address, and a private key that proves it's really you. Nobody issues it, nobody can revoke it.

Relays are dumb pipes

A relay's whole job is to store and forward signed events. It doesn't authenticate you, doesn't own your account, and can't alter a message without breaking its signature.

You're never locked in

Stop liking a relay, add another, drop one that goes offline - your identity and contacts move with you, because none of it lives on any single relay's server.

Open and permissionless

Anyone can run a relay, and anyone can build a client. Owli is one client among many that all speak the same protocol - there's no gatekeeper deciding who's allowed to build on Nostr.

A typical app vs. Nostr

TYPICAL APP

  • •One company runs the one server your account lives on
  • •They can suspend, ban, or delete your account at will
  • •Your contacts and history are stuck on their server
  • •Sign-up usually means a phone number or email tied to you

NOSTR

  • •Many independent relays, none of them required or in charge
  • •Your identity is a keypair - nobody can revoke it, only block a relay from carrying it
  • •Switch relays or clients freely; your identity and contacts come with you
  • •Created entirely on-device - no phone number, no email, no sign-up form

See exactly how Owli uses it

From keypair generation to a message landing in someone's inbox - broken down step by step.

How it works →