Spatia Nostra

A Simple List of Management Tools for Nostr Relay Operators

Spatia Nostra — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 21:26:10 GMT

Trex for Relay Tools https://relay.tools/relays/myrelays -Browsing Client and Moderation Tool: Manage your nostr1 relay's content and allowed authors, see and search kind type and usage statistics, and more.
Landlubber by Coracle https://landlubber.coracle.social/ -Relay moderation and management: Manage your relay's reports, content, and hosted groups. Apply bans and lift bans with ease. View and take action on submitted reports.
Relay Tools Mobile App https://zapstore.dev/apps/naddr1qvzqqqr7pvpzqlxr9zsgmke2lhuln0nhhml5eq6gnluhjuscyltz3f2z7v4zglqwqqt8gmm0d3ejuun9d3shjtnjv4kxz7t5dahkcucqxkt5u -Android app to browse and moderate your relays on the fly: Easily remove content and block authors with a couple clicks, while browsing your social feed. Check relay usage, speed, and active monitors.
Relay Guardian https://relayguardian.com/ -Free and Paid Relay Monitoring Service: Sign in and add your relay for notifications of outages and downtime, sent to your Nostr DMs or email.
**Nostr Watch **https://nostr.watch/ -Relay Explorer: View relay usage and write policy, accepted event kinds, uptime, location, monitors, and audits ...on your own or any relay.
Nostr Rodeo https://nostr.rodeo/ -Relay Explorer: View the content hosted on any publicly available relay. Search and sort by timeframe, author, event kind, or common topic tags.

You can take advantage of these…

Spatia Nostra — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 19:02:57 GMT

You can take advantage of these great tips, no matter which client you like to use!

Visit https://metadata.nostr.com to easily manage your relay lists and automatically back up your contact list, too. nostr:nevent1qqsqsd2mdk2cch9p8dmvgxz9dyfd6v83zdmuwt938967j0rsp9rjyxcpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7q3qgcxzte5zlkncx26j68ez60fzkvtkm9e0vrwdcvsjakxf9mu9qewqxpqqqqqqz6rmlaq
nostr:nevent1qqs9jvz0vgjqn65e6gu4v3plt7zddg8mqk4qd9uywamldfgwtk0607spz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7q3qgcxzte5zlkncx26j68ez60fzkvtkm9e0vrwdcvsjakxf9mu9qewqxpqqqqqqzt2mz5s

Exploring the Pyramid Realy for Nostr

Spatia Nostra — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 13:16:44 GMT

Exploring the Pyramid Realy for Nostr

A look at the features, possibilities, and ease of operation of running a pyramid relay.
Visit https://github.com/fiatjaf/pyramid to get started.

“The ability to ask questions is…

Spatia Nostra — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 03:42:15 GMT

“The ability to ask questions is the greatest resource in learning the truth.”

Exploring the Pyramid Relay... is now…

Spatia Nostra — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 14:45:45 GMT

Exploring the Pyramid Relay... is now on YouTube, too.
https://youtu.be/iSAX9hO3vbk
Thank you, Bohemia !

Spatia Nostra -Interstice

Spatia Nostra — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 20:25:31 GMT

Spatia Nostra -Interstice
https://chachi.chat/wss:%2F%2Fspatia-arcana.com/abiafrayv

Follower count/list information, for anyone…

Spatia Nostra — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 00:47:05 GMT

Follower count/list information, for anyone unaware & since this seems to be a topic today:

- Follow lists for each individual are saved to many relays but not every relay. Of those, there may be some that your client may or may not be able to access at a given time. It is a very difficult/nearly impossible metric to measure accurately or consistently. This will only get more complex as user numbers, relay numbers, client diversity, and data distribution grows.

- Nothing on the web is immune to bots. Nostr is not immune to bots. WoT helps to hide these, but it is fallible without a centralized point of "verification" (which also doesn't prevent this, as anyone who's used centralized socials can attest) You will pick up bot followers, others will have bot followers, too.

- A lost or abandoned key doesn't mean that account will go away. It may always exist. User churn, compromised accounts, deleted accounts, failed first tries, test keys, and a plethora of other reasons will always account for follower numbers to grow for many people.

- Some onboarding flows involve creating a pre-built follow list for a new user. What those lists are comprised of, or how they are created, is largely the decision of those building these clients. This will conflate the number of follows on some accounts, in inorganic ways.

Welcome to true decentralization. The traditional definition of "success" will likely not apply, except maybe in semi-centralized environments. If you are trying to grow a presence, focus on your craft. If you are trying to have a good time, focus on your experience. 💜

I'm seeing a lot of…

Spatia Nostra — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 15:56:47 GMT

I'm seeing a lot of follow list questions on asknostr amd elsewhere today, so i thought I'd share a blanket answer:

Every time you follow or unfollow someone, a new version of your follow list is created, meant to replace the old one. Some relays may not get the memo because there's lots of relays.

When you sign into a new client, it asks whatever relays it connects with, for your follow list. The relays send what they have, which may not be the current version. If you follow/unfollow from the new client, it triggers the follow list update, editing whatever copy of your list that it has, which is then broadcast to many relays. That's how you lose some of your follows.

If the relay being asked doesn't have a copy of your list, it says "this user doesn't have one" and the client creates a new, empty list. Again, the follow/unfollow action triggers publishing & that is how you lose your whole follow list.

In short, it's a client issue because it's not making requests about you to the relays that you have in your "write" relays list, but instead to some other relay(s) that you've never sent data to before or that have old data. Avoiding the follow/unfollow actions when trying out new clients will mostly mitigate the problem. If you start using that new client regularly, eventually your follow list will make it to the appropriate relays and/or the client will get updated and start making requests to the appropriate relays.

Visit metadata.nostr.com or follows.nostr.com on occassion to back up your follow list. You can then rebroadcast the correct version, if you experience this unintended follow list fiasco. Alternatively, you can add wss://hist.nostr.land to your write/outbox relays. It will keep the latest previous version of your follow list. You can then visit the homepage to restore.

Some clients offer in-app follow list restoration, both as a paid and free feature, as well.

Anyone Can Operate a Nostr Relay

Spatia Nostra — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 00:31:53 GMT

If you've followed along this far, you've read about what relays are and their importance, managing your various relay connections, browsing relay feeds as discovery mechanisms, and you have taken a closer look at some of the many unique ways that relays can expand and enhance your Nostr-verse. The next obvious step is to discuss taking your control of relaying to the next level, whatever that may be for you. There are a lot of options out there now, and no excuses...

Hosted & Rentals:

Starting off, one of the most simple-to-use services for anyone looking to get more involved in the relay side of Nostr, is Relay Tools. This relay rental service offers highly functional, easy to understand controls, complete infrastructure, and great customer support. You can set up communities, host your personal data, or open up a public space. All rentals come with moderation tools, giving you control of the content that you host.
Relay.land has a suite of unique and experimental relay implementations, including customizable, user-controlled relays. There is a relay with full reply moderation capabilities, a bookmark-to-relay service, and if you know a little code, relays that you ca ncustomize to your specifications. This is a bit of a laboratory, so pricing is set mainly for spam prevention at this time, but is subject to change as the platform develops.
Nosflare boasts one click relay deployment to your own Cloudflare account. Plug in your API, set up the details. and go. The one-time fee covers software development and maintenance of management tools. Your only recurring cost is your Cloudflare fees.

Local options:

Nostr-relay-tray is the fastest and simplest way to host a local relay on your home computer or laptop. Visit the Releases page, find the appropriate package, and download. Installation is automated. Open the file, grant the permissions, and relay tray is ready to store all of your data for you, online or off. You can create custom filters and manage your relay from a simple to understand interface. Start securing your data in less than 5 minutes.
Citrine, the original "The relay is in the phone!" application. Designed for Android devices, this app doesn't skimp on the features. Import events to your mobile device, store and delete as needed. With a little finesse you can also set this up as a DM-over-Tor relay for your mobile DMs.
Aegis is a multi-platform Nostr signer with a built-in local relay. Find it on Apple Testflight or Github.
One of the original local Nostr relays, available from Umbrel. This is a simple backup; all you need to do is hook to it over your wifi with any device, and you're instantly syncing your data. Setup is a breeze, and the app walks you through it. While this may not be the most comprehensive or up-to-date option, it works and works well.

For self-hosters and programmers:

Unfortunately, I am but a believer in the optimistic Nostr-ized future, and not a computer whiz. If you are and you're reading this, thanks! I don't know why you're here but I appreciate it. As a token of gratitude, I've gathered a small collection of resources that are beyond my capabilities, and you probably already know about. This collection works as a to-do list for myself, too, so maybe its not a completely selfless effort. A more comprehensive list is available at nostr.net. A quick Github search yields a plethora of results, as well.

To scroll through asknostr and see…

Spatia Nostra — Sat, 11 Oct 2025 16:06:37 GMT

To scroll through asknostr and see everything that I feel comfortable replying to already sufficiently answered ... is glorious. 💜 vibes are high lately.

Feeds: Follows or Relays? Both.

Spatia Nostra — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 04:31:16 GMT

Your follow feed consists of notes by your contacts, hashtags, and communities. This generally works in one of two ways:

Your client connects to an array of relays that your follows have announced that they write to, in order to find their notes. This is referred to as the outbox model. This helps to ensure that the posts that matter to you are making it to your feed, at the cost of slightly higher data consumption and sometimes slower speeds. This is decentralized social at its maximum capacity. Many users, many relays, and no fear of being cut off from your social circles.
Your client connects a predefined set of relays. Your client then requests notes from your follows from only these relays. Some, such as proxy and filter relays, may do a better job of collecting and serving the appropriate posts. This static relay model saves on bandwidth, but may trade off on reliability. Should your contacts choose to publish to other relays, they may go completely unseen. This has a centralizing effect, in that no one wants to be cut off from their friends so they are less likely to publish other places.

What does this have to do with feed comparisons and why is it important? Simply stated, Nostr fails to be censorship resistant, if it fails to decentralize. Big, crowded relays become giant servers and the past repeats itself. Data consumption isn't the only gravitational pull towards centralization, though. Exposure and discovery also play key parts in this battle.

Your follow feed:

It is important. We use this to keep up with the things and people that matter to us, keeping us informed, connected, and entertained. The "follow" action also lends social accreditation, bringing people away from accidentally being labeled as spam on the network. The chronological nature of most follow feeds is also a refreshing change from the algorithmic hellscapes that keep so many under their spells. We can feel life flow more naturally in our follow feed, as people move throughout their days, in different time zones around the world. In a lot of ways, your Nostr follow feed is the most human experience you will find online. It also has the same limitations as in real life, in that synchronicity and organic happenstance take precedent in how encounter new subjects and people. This can lead to beautiful, meaningful connections, but this is not something we can expect to happen on a predictable basis. The siren song of the algorithms of yore beckon loudest when we are bored. We want to seek and find new, interesting, things. We seek stimulation from a screen that has for so long provided endless entertainment. To stave this off, some will advise to follow lots of people. Others try to calculate just how to develop these algorithms, in an environment in which they will flounder without a centralized pool of the notes and other stuff. Another solution exists.

Relay feeds:

Until recently, accessing the contents of a single relay had been difficult and cumbersome. There has been lots of progress in multiple clients, to make that experience more accessible to the average user. This enables an ecosystem of unique and powerful relays to grow and expand. Experiments involving user-centric algorithms, communities, topics, languages, user actions, and curation have begun to appear. Plainly, this is the discovery mechanism that the network has lacked. The contents of any public relay can be accessed and browsed. Some relays have leverage conditional interactions. Others are more strictly for browsing, with the intention of acting as discovery and nothing more. All the while, the outbox method discussed above enables these discovery relays to still maintain the social aspects we expect from a social feed, while also bringing a more consistent distribution of the data redundancy that makes Nostr so powerful.

If your follow feed is feeling stale or you simply want to find something new and fresh, check out this list of clients and begin your expedition. Your follow feed will still be there when you're ready to go back. New people can and will work their way into the network through interacting, more simply and genuinely than if they were attempting to stand out in the chaos of "global" feeds. If I were to offer advice for anyone new to Nostr, I would tell them to explore and interact in unique relay feeds, follow who and what you find and enjoy. Build a follow list that you love and use it for just that.

A List of Unique and Experimental Relays

Spatia Nostra — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 22:38:14 GMT

Use a relay browsing client to explore:

Curated Content:

wss://relays.land/spatianostra -Curation through dymanic community consensus
wss://theforest.nostr1.com -paid service. a feed hand-curated by the Alexandria team. Visit https://theforest.nostr1.com to join.
wss://primus.nostr1.com -2 of the largest public relay feeds. combined, filtered, and refined
wss://news.utxo.one -all news, all the time... Really... All. The. Time
wss://algo.utxo.one -an algorithmic feed you control. Visit https://algo.utxo.one to control your algo.
wss://hotrightnow.nostr1.com -feed with no mention of bitcoin or crypto
wss://140.f7z.io -all notes 140 characters or less
https://topic.relays.land -topic specific relays with notes approved by LLM

Community Relays:

https://lang.relays.land (74 language specific relays) -Members invited through rebroadcasted notes in appropriate language.
wss://relay.nostr.moe -Japanese community relay
wss://relay.nostrarabia.com -Arab community relay
wss://noornode.nostr1.com -Muslim community relays
wss://christpill.nostr1.com -Christian community relay
wss://pyramid.fiatjaf.com -Closed to write, open to read community

Interactive Relays:

wss://imp.relays.land (craftily hidden notes)
wss://23gmt.nostr.technology (chat relay, open for an hour a day)
wss://feedback.relays.land (buy credits at https://feedback.relays.land to write. Earn credits by leaving quality feedback.)
wss://lockbox.relays.land (write notes to the people you follow)
wss://pow.relays.land (only accepts proof of work notes)

For Creators:

wss://creatr.nostr.wine (Patreon-like creator content by subscription) Visit https://creatr.nostr.wine to subscribe.
wss://zapbox.relays.land (publish special notes for your biggest fans) Visit https://zapbox.relays.land to post.

Full Suite:

wss://nostr.land -Visit https://nostr.land to sign up.
wss://jellyfish.land -Visit https://jellyfish.land to join.
wss://nostr.wine , wss://filter.nostr.wine , wss://inbox.nostr.wine -Visit https://nostr.wine to sign up.

Personal Services:

wss://cellar.nostr.wine (paid service. long term note storage) Visit https://nostr.wine to sign up.
wss://bookmarks.relays.land (paid service, permanent bookmarks) Visit https://bookmarks.relays.land to sign up.
wss://hist.nostr.land -Contact list restoration
wss://personal.relays.land -Private, personal notes
wss://auth.nostr1.com -Free-to-use DM relay

A Look at Outbox Relays

Spatia Nostra — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 21:32:19 GMT

Managing outbox relays on Nostr is simple, but one of the most important things to understand about the using the protocol. Your choices can greatly affect whether or not your notes are visible to your followers. You may want your notes to reach as many people as possible or you may want to limit your exposure. This is for you to decide, but understanding how to choose your outbox relays that best suit your situation can help you to achieve your goals. Firstly, it is important to understand that your outbox relays are the simple servers to which you will publish your notes (and other events). Clients will fetch your notes from those relays. Some clients will do so automatically and while others may require users to choose where to retrieve this data. Some relays are more broadly accessed across the network than others, while some have very limited access. You can self host, rent space, pay for write access, join restricted groups, or use free public service relays.

You may want to consider is how you want to use Nostr. In a social media context, you might want to publish to large, public relays to ensure a broad availability of your . Often these will be default outbox relays, set within a client when you first set up your profile. These will publish your profile and relay list to a wide network. These default settings are fine for most users and can be adjusted as you explore other methods. Eventually, you will want to choose 2-3 relays that are reliable and spam-resistant. It is often recommended that you publish to one "large" relay and one "small" relay, for a balance of reach and availability. A 3rd could be your own private relay or a specialized relay that you makes your notes available to a a niche community.

You may also want your notes be published to only smaller relays that restrict community size, maintain very tight spam controls, are topic-based, or any other plethora of possibilities. These option are often paid or otherwise have criteria to be met for write access. You can explore different relays by browsing feeds in any relay feed client. If at anytime, you want to move or change where you publish, you simply switch out the relay URL. Doing so frequently can cause multiple versions of your relay list to exist across the network, so I wouldn't suggest doing so often, but experiment and find what works best for you. Once you have are happy with your experience, leave them be until you need to change. The list will become more evenly distributed, as you post and communicate.

In the event that a relay operator removes your write privileges, for any reason, you can switch to other relays or host your own. Your profile will continue to exist on the network and your relay list will update upon publishing the new settings. In most cases, your followers will have no problem finding your notes. In extreme cases, you may need to let people know where you are publishing so that they may start looking there. Either way, this is where Nostr's censorship resistance shines. It is impossible to be "banned from Nostr". If you believe that your words may invoke disciplinary actions from relay operators, begin with simple self-hosting of a relay, like Haven, in addition the options described above.

In short, you shouldn't need to worry about your outbox relays too much, but in the event that you need to, or want to better maintain control of your data, you may want to explore some of the many different options.

For a quick relay setup demo, watch this video.

#nostr #ndoc

I'm working on a piece…

Spatia Nostra — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 14:01:37 GMT

I'm working on a piece regarding outbox/ write relays too. Keep an eye out, if you have found my previous guides helpful.
Choosing Inbox Relays

😅 #nostr

Spatia Nostra — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 19:16:24 GMT

😅 #nostr

Choosing Inbox Relays

Spatia Nostra — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 18:49:26 GMT

When you first set up your Nostr account, the client that you opt to use will assign you default relays to manage responses to your posts. One part of these defaults are inbox relays, sometimes referred to as "read" relays. This is where all of the likes, replies, and any other activity on your notes will be sent for you to see. Most default relays are free to connect with and may send you incoming interactions from anyone. This setup allows for new people to chat and interact with ease until they can navigate their way around Nostr more efficiently. It also means that your notes may be more open to receiving spam replies. Most free-to-the-public relays try their best to mitigate spam but it is often difficult to determine whether a note is from a spammy bot or a real human until that user has either established some history or otherwise proven themselves to be legitimate through methods like reputation building, paying a fee, or providing proof-of-work computations. If and when the time comes that your notes become the target of a spammer, it is surely time to adjust your public inbox relay connections. Doing so beforehand can prevent annoying and possibly uncomfortable situations from effecting your Nostr experience.

A good inbox relay that is easy to set up and understand will often charge a small connection fee. These relays will use more aggressive methods of spam control and often will provide other services alongside of that feature. You may find one that also offers DM services, search functionality, or NIP-05 addresses. There are one-time fee relays, as well as subscription services that will offer higher levels of features and customer support. This is the first and simplest suggestion for tailoring your relay list to match your needs.

Once you have established some history within Nostr and develop a personal network, you are able to consider switching your inbox relay connections to WoT relays. These relays are operated by someone who acts as the center point of trust, which in this case means a person with a contact list of people that they deem to be legitimate people. From there, permission to receive incoming interactions branches out to who they follow, who their follows follow, and sometimes further. The degree is chosen and set by the relay operator. These relays are an incredibly effective option for reducing spam, though on occasion an individual within the web may unknowingly follow an account that many others consider to be spammy. You can find more information about Web of Trust relays, including how to operate your own in this post.

Allow list or "whitelist" relays keep a list of who is approved to write notes to the relay. Connecting to an allow list relay can greatly limit who is able to send you replies and other interactions. This may be desirable, if you wish to limit who is able to talk directly to you. As with any of these options, people may be replying through other relays & those replies may be visible to anyone who is "reading" from them. You are simply not seeing it. These allow list relays may charge a fee, as well as require other criteria based on behavior and posting habits, in order to maintain the right conversate on that relay.

Another option is a personal relay, for which you control all incoming content based on the criteria that you choose. Hosted relay services and various relay software packages are available for you to use. This may the best and ideal option for managing incoming replies, though it is technically more complicated and not something that new users will likely be equipped to handle very easily, unless they have come to Nostr with previous self-hosting experience.

Other inbox relay implementations are under development. This post may be updated with noteworthy information in the future. For a great introduction to relay management, check out this video. To explore what different relays have to offer, visit https://nostr.watch .