Nostr Relays

Nostr relays send and receive Stuff (yes, that is the official term, its the S in NoStr) to subscribed clients. Clients generally subscribe to multiple Relays (that’s the R in NostR). Relays can be designed and deployed for different purposes and with different functions. Relay development is the most critical and exciting space in the Nostr ecosystem. Selecting which Relays to subscribe to can dramatically impact your Nostr experience.

There are various categories of Nostr Relays:

1. Public
2. Paid
3. Private
4. Topical (tags)
5. Media (kind)
6. Authors (pubkey)

Public Relays

There are public relays for many different purposes: performance; audience; community; content type; etc. Selecting which Relays to subscribe to can dramatically impact your Nostr experience.

Public Nostr Relays Ranked by Performance

If you are a Relay developer, please get in touch with me at cstack@sideways.com to be included in our upcoming Relay Database.

[Sideways Embedded spreadsheet under development]

Relay Software

There are numerous Relay software packages with varying goals, features, and benefits. One of the key differences is which NIPs each relay package supports. Below is a spreadsheet that lists Relay software packages under active development, their key features, and NIP support.

Recently Updated Nostr Relay GitHub Repositories

Comparison of Major Nostr Relay Packages Google Sheet