pyramid, the Nostr relay

What it's good for

Pick pyramid for a relay for a group that grows by invitation.

• An invite tree. Members can invite other members, up to a set number each. Whoever invited someone can remove them, and a log of invites and removals is kept. (source)
• Many relays on one domain. Separate relays on their own paths: the main one, an internal one for members, favorites, inbox, popular, moderated and more. (source)
• Batteries included. Groups, NIP-05 addresses, search (NIP-50), negentropy sync, Blossom media and git hosting (NIP-34), all configured in the browser. (source)
• Its own TLS. On port 443 it gets a Let's Encrypt certificate itself, so it needs no reverse proxy. (source)

Running pyramid yourself

The installer gets pyramid running in minutes, and it handles its own TLS. Running a community relay is the longer job: members invite members, so someone has to watch the invite tree and remove people when it goes wrong. You also look after the server, apply new releases, and keep copies of its data somewhere other than that one machine.

We don't host community relays. If you only want a relay for your own notes, we're opening hosted relays, each one yours and private by default, kept online, updated and backed up nightly. They aren't open yet; reserving is free and commits you to nothing.

How to install it

1. The one-line installer

On a fresh Linux server with a domain pointing at it. The script opens ports 80 and 443 in ufw, downloads the latest release for your CPU, installs a systemd service and starts it. Read it first: you're piping it into bash. From the repo.

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fiatjaf/pyramid/refs/heads/master/easy.sh | bash

2. Finish in the browser

Open http://<your server's IP> and set the domain and the root user there. From the repo.

http://<your-server-ip>

3. Or with Docker Compose

The repo's docker-compose.yml builds the image and maps port 3334, with data in a named volume. From the repo.

git clone https://github.com/fiatjaf/pyramid && cd pyramid
docker compose up -d

TLS and the reverse proxy

No reverse proxy needed: on port 443 pyramid handles TLS itself. Behind your own proxy (the Docker setup, port 3334), forward the WebSocket upgrade as for any relay.

The full walk-through, with a reverse proxy, DNS and a check at the end, is in the guide to running a Nostr relay.

What it says in NIP-11

pyramid puts https://github.com/fiatjaf/pyramid in the software field; that is how our monitor recognises it. Its version is currentVersion, set at build time (v1.4.6 for the latest release).