Your Favorite Nostr Clients - A Weekend Discussion
671 sats \ 24 comments \ @sn 4 Jun 2023 nostr
There are many great Nostr clients that have been relentlessly shipping new features and updates for months now. However, some of these updates have been overlooked as the first wave of Nostr excitement seems to have calmed down.
We decided it would be fun to shine a light on those developments this weekend. We want to hear which Nostr clients you're using today, what your favorite new features are, and why?
A few questions worth considering:
  • What Nostr features are essential when deciding which client you want to use?
  • Which client offers the best user experience for you?
  • Do you switch between multiple clients or are you loyal to one?
  • Which Nostr clients have released under-rated features that the SN community should know about?
  • Do you use Nostr more or less than other platforms like Stacker News and Twitter?
  • What is on the top of your Nostr feature wishlist?
write
preview
related posts
1066 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 4 Jun 2023
What Nostr features are essential when deciding which client you want to use?
Seeing things I want fast.
Which client offers the best user experience for you?
Without a doubt Damus. Even though there isn't an algo and I still have to sift through the noisy posters that I follow, at least I don't have to wait for everything to load.
Do you switch between multiple clients or are you loyal to one?
I use damus on mobile, snort on desktop, but then I use iris for notifications because notifications are slow/unreliable on snort for some reason.
Do you use Nostr more or less than other platforms like Stacker News and Twitter?
Less but it's mostly because there's no way to outsource signal discovery on nostr yet.
What is on the top of your Nostr feature wishlist?
  1. Algorithms that work in a decentralized way. The nostr community seems to prefer the idea of algorithm providers but imho that's not much different than the way things work on the web (even if today we're all kumbaya and I can view the algo in whatever client I want) ... I don't want a SPOF, a single point of moderation, a single point of censorship, for the algorithm I like ... imho algorithms done through centralized providers make the protocol way less interesting for social use cases, because it will make desirable social experiences centralized which isn't differentiated from "the way things are currently done."
  2. A coherent strategy for scaling.
  3. Better incentive schemes for running relays. All the attention is on clients and they will capture most of the value unless the protocol enables/encourages sharing that value - and relays pay the biggest real world costs. I think a lot about the internet and how IP has been in stasis for 30 years because ISPs have no financial incentive to "upgrade the internet." In a similar vein there aren't incentives to compete with them ... it is centralizing.
  4. Smarter key management. There's likely a middle ground between a single key pair and DIDs that makes the right tradeoffs.
All of that said, I'm still very excited about nostr and everything that people are building. It's fun! It's also the best thing we've got right now. And everyone willing to speak on the matter seems to think none of these things I've listed are concerns/things nostr needs. So perhaps I'm wrong.
reply
649 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout 4 Jun 2023
I tried many various clients, often from their early stages. It comes down to the experience and features. Specific UX decisions, like how the thread UI looks like, where are the buttons, whether it shows "replies" by default, etc matter a lot.
On the phone Amethyst works the best and sometimes I use Plebstr to try new features they add. On desktop it evolves quickly. I liked Iris, but then some features/UI changes made it worse. Astral became unusable. I don't think Coracle is there yet. I don't like the Snort UX, but it has some features that are missing elsewhere. Primal got much better recently, especially with tap-to-zap it became my to-go client, but it's still missing some features and has things broken (doesn't have DMs, doesn't have emoticons support in post creation).
Overall signal-to-noise is an issue on Nostr. It's often a lot of scrolling before you find something interesting - and I haven't found a way to mitigate it. In comparison SN is well distilled signal in the first page.
reply
381 sats \ 0 replies \ @franzap 4 Jun 2023
Constantly switch web clients. Coracle best so far
What is on the top of your Nostr feature wishlist?
  • faster initial loading (might need a NIP for relays to expose data via REST?)
  • better efficiency/consistency, connecting to one relay should be enough unless you're actively being censored
  • marketplace for algos
reply
236 sats \ 0 replies \ @harrigan 4 Jun 2023
It is not for everyone, but I really like more-speech (https://github.com/unclebob/more-speech). The intended audience is programmers, especially Clojure programmers. It is fascinating to read through Uncle Bob's Clojure specs for things like Bech32.
reply
371 sats \ 0 replies \ @Maximux 4 Jun 2023
The Nostr client I've seen with the fastest connection is Iris (in my personal experience).
reply
353 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 4 Jun 2023
I look forward to reading these responses. I became disillusioned with Iris, and as a result I don't use nostr as much as I used to. I'm interested myself on opinions about Habla and BlogStack.
reply
225 sats \ 0 replies \ @btcphoto 4 Jun 2023
My favorites are Primal, Coracle and Iris, I switch among them all the time. I use nostr way more than Twitter and SN.
reply
284 sats \ 0 replies \ @ncryppt 4 Jun 2023
Started off with astral, then was on snort for a long while. Still use snort once in a while, but have been on iris mainly as my web client
reply
284 sats \ 0 replies \ @beorange 4 Jun 2023
I used to use Astral, but to be sincere, I'm haven't found yet a desktop/web client that I really like.
Perhaps i will pick a few from this thread to explore.
reply
284 sats \ 0 replies \ @JulienPH 4 Jun 2023
Astral in my first few months, and now Primal
reply
284 sats \ 0 replies \ @supratic 4 Jun 2023
on iOS Damus and Plebstr... Primal is gaining points too
reply
215 sats \ 0 replies \ @dgy 4 Jun 2023
Amethyst
reply
215 sats \ 0 replies \ @_jklnz 4 Jun 2023
I‘ve stayed with Damus ever since the beginning , although I tried Plebstr a few weeks ago. On desktop I use Snort and have not tried anything else so far.
reply
215 sats \ 0 replies \ @JesseJames 4 Jun 2023
Primal, for the looks and speed, can't wait for all the features to be active. Until then, switching between clients is the way imo, Iris is close second for the same reasons, yer iris is slower. Except these two I can't find good browser client that is workable, YMMV.
reply
143 sats \ 2 replies \ @guts 4 Jun 2023
Right now I like Plebstr and testing Primal.
reply
0 sats \ 1 reply \ @5atoshiNakamoto 4 Jun 2023
can't log out of primal...
reply
261 sats \ 0 replies \ @bkdoubleohseven 5 Jun 2023 freebie
I personally found that I can't post or follow on primal despite being logged in and all. Probably just me, I don't know. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
reply
143 sats \ 0 replies \ @energycurrency 4 Jun 2023
deleted by author
reply
377 sats \ 0 replies \ @mrtali 4 Jun 2023
To create an account by speed I choose Iris but I wasn't able to verify the account, by design I liked Current but still too beta so I ended with Damus because it's the only one who reads well the verification, has a nice ux and (even with some bugs) it's more stable than the others.
reply
231 sats \ 0 replies \ @03365d6a53 4 Jun 2023
How do you guys manage keys on android?
I haven't found a signer that works.
The only way to use nostr with android nostr clients (it seems) is to paste in your private key, which is a bit scary tbh
Please correct me?
reply
190 sats \ 0 replies \ @shyfire 5 Jun 2023
Are there any iOS clients that support Tor the way Amethyst does? I deleted Damus because it doesn't have that feature.
reply
190 sats \ 0 replies \ @travis 5 Jun 2023
Using Amethyst on the Android. Been recommending Damus for iPhones. Snort or Primal for desktop.
reply
66 sats \ 0 replies \ @Gjoni 5 Jun 2023
Damus is my fave
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @flyingburrito 20 Jun 2023
I like the idea of Zapddit, where you can follow topics instead of just users.
reply