Vector
Open-source private messenger with NIP-17 gift-wrapped DMs, fully encrypted Discord-style communities, and built-in Tor. No phone number or email needed.
Vector is a free, open-source private messenger built on Nostr. There’s no phone number, email or account to create: you sign in with a keypair and start talking. Direct messages use the modern encrypted-messaging stack (NIP-17, pairing NIP-44 encryption with NIP-59 gift wraps), which hides who is talking to whom as well as what they say.
Key Features
- Modern encrypted DMs: NIP-17/44/59 gift-wrapped private messaging, not legacy NIP-04
- Encrypted communities: Discord-style spaces with channels, roles and admins, built on the Concord protocol; removing a member re-keys the room
- Built-in Tor: route all traffic through an embedded Tor client, bridges included
- Remote signers: keep your key in a separate signer via NIP-46 (or Amber on Android)
- Privacy by default: photo metadata stripped before sending, self-destructing messages, PIN or biometric lock
- Lightweight: runs in under 200MB of RAM on Windows, macOS, Linux and Android
Why Choose Vector?
If you want Nostr for private conversations and group chats rather than a public feed, Vector is one of the most complete options, alongside 0xchat. It is actively developed in the open under the MIT licence.
Vector is not on the iOS App Store. An unrelated iPhone app uses the same name, so download from vectorapp.io or GitHub.