# Damus — The social network you control

> Decentralized social network with encrypted messaging and user control. (iPhone/iPad app by Damus Nostr, Inc.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/damus/id1628663131 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Damus Nostr, Inc](https://appshunter.io/developer/1510689510)
- Category: Social Networking, Entertainment
- Price: Free with in-app purchases
- Rating: 4.80/5 from 676 App Store ratings · 168 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: +17
- Requires: iOS 16.0 · 98 MB
- Languages: Brazilian Portuguese, German (Germany), Bulgarian, Czech, Chinese (Simplified, China), Chinese (Traditional, Hong Kong SAR China), Korean, European Spanish, Finnish, French (France) and 18 more
- Released: 2023-01-31
- Data updated: 2026-08-19
- Monetization: free with in-app purchases
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/damus/id1628663131/reviews.md

## What is Damus?

The social network you control.

It's your very own Social Network for your friends or business.

Built on open internet protocols, there is no platform that can ban or censor you. You are in control of your data & speech.

- Encrypted. End-to-End encrypted private messaging. Keep big tech out of your DMs.
- No registration required. Creating an account doesn't require a phone number, email or name. Get started right away with zero friction.
- Messages are distributed via decentralized relays. No need to run any infrastructure and there are no single points of failure. Simple!
- Programmable. Easily integrate bots that automate your life or business. Get notified when your servers go down, retweet to your team and collaborate in realtime.
- Tip your friends and stack sats with lightning.


Privacy policy: https://damus.io/privacy-policy.txt
Terms of service: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

## Key features

- Decentralized social network
- End-to-end encrypted messaging
- No registration required
- Programmable bots integration
- Lightning tipping for friends

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**Subscriptions**

| Subscription | Price | Period |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Purple | $9.99 | per month |
| Purple Yearly | $99.99 | per year |


## What do users think of Damus?

Overall sentiment: positive

**Pros**

- 🚀 Fast and efficient
- 🔒 Censorship-resistant
- 💰 Bitcoin/Lightning integration
- 👍 Intuitive and user-friendly
- 🌐 Decentralized protocol
- 🤝 Positive community

**Cons**

- 🐛 Occasional bugs and glitches
- 🔍 Limited search/discovery features
- 💬 Lack of moderation tools

**Commonly reported bugs**

- Inability to post or view content
- Inconsistent performance on older devices
- Issues with connecting to relays

**Most requested features**

- Add polls and voting features
- Improve search and content discovery
- Implement user-controlled moderation tools
- Add support for more languages

## Recent user reviews (10 of 168)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/damus/id1628663131/reviews.md

### 1/5 — Fails before use

*2026-07-08, version 1.17*

Unfortunately this app can not be used as it seemingly offers a secure login, but does not actually implement one. You simply can not use a signer to login. It won’t accept it. Scan a qr code, it just never actually scans it you stand there all day. Copy and paste a bunker url it fails every single time. In trying to get people to join the Nostr community the one thing we are told is never paste your nsec and for whatever reason that is all this app will accept. Shame as it looks nice

### 3/5 — Clean ui, poor performance

*2026-06-03, version 1.17*

I want to like it but it has been performing extremely poorly on my iPhone 13 over the last few months, scrolling is really choppy and the app is almost unusable with the UI freezing up. It’s also taking up a huge amount of storage space, close to 9 GB and clearing cache removed only a few MBs. Disappointing because it has my favorite UI among nostr apps and notifications also works the best.

### 1/5 — Total POS

*2026-01-31, version 1.14*

Says my priv key is public

### 5/5 — Ficou bom

*2026-01-30*

Em 2023 não era legal, mas hj está 👍

### 2/5 — It’s ok at best

*2026-01-10, version 1.14*

If it wasn’t for the fact that it’ll randomly freeze for no reason and need a force close it would be a good app

### 1/5 — Need to fix the relay connectivity

*2025-09-19, version 1.14*

I just got this app and it seems fine so far but I can’t connect to any relays at all. Had the app open for like 10 min trying to connect to one, checked the spelling in case I was missing something. But it keeps cycling between ‘connecting’ and ‘error’.

### 1/5 — This app promotes too much child pornographers/pornagraphy.

*2025-08-05*

You guys need to get rid of those users selling and showcasing videos of children have sex in real life and A.i. these are children being raped/drugged/tricked and some are probably dealing with mental illness. Please, get rid of CHILD PORN OFF YOUR PLATFORM. Jesus said “ whoever would cause these little children to Sin, it is better you tie a rope with a brick around your neck and cast yourself into the bottom of the sea.” Please help these children by not letting users post that evil on your platform.

### 1/5 — 打开没内容

*2025-07-31, version 1.14*

打开软件一直提示暂无内容，请稍后重试字样，这软件到底还能用么？

### 5/5 — Stable, beautiful and

*2025-07-29, version 1.14*

Great ui. Snappy and very intuitive.

### 3/5 — 不支持多账号

*2025-07-12, version 1.14*

不支持多账号，私信收不到消息

## Frequently asked questions about Damus

### What is Damus?

Damus is a decentralized social network built on open internet protocols, giving users complete control over their data and speech. It offers end-to-end encrypted private messaging and does not require registration with personal information.

### What are the key features of Damus?

Key features include end-to-end encrypted private messaging, no registration requirements, decentralized message distribution via relays, programmable bot integration for automation, and the ability to tip friends and stack sats with the lightning network.

### Is Damus free to use?

The application itself is free to download and use. While the core social networking and messaging features are free, it supports in-app purchases, likely related to tipping or other integrated services.

### How does Damus ensure privacy and security?

Damus prioritizes privacy and security through end-to-end encryption for all private messages, ensuring that only the sender and recipient can read them. Its decentralized nature also means there's no single platform that can censor or ban users, and no registration is needed, further protecting user identity.

### Who is Damus for?

Damus is designed for users who value control over their online presence, privacy, and freedom of speech. It's suitable for individuals who want an alternative to traditional social media platforms and are interested in decentralized technologies and secure communication.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 1.17 — 2026-06-03

### Added

- Added Sentry error and diagnostics reporting to aid future quality improvements (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Automatic lossless storage optimization (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Added "Compact Database" button in Settings → Storage that reclaims unused space by compacting the NostrDB on the next app launch (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Full container file breakdown in storage settings export (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Show client name on events when available (alltheseas)
- Add client tag to published events to identify Damus (alltheseas)
- Storage usage statistics view in Settings (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Added GIF keyboard support (Damus Labs only) (ericholguin)
- Added detailed diagnostics reporting to GIF keyboard errors (Daniel D'Aquino)


### Changed

- Redesigned media blur overlay to look like intentional protection instead of a broken state (alltheseas)
- Moved clear cache button to storage settings (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Clear stale LMDB readers on NostrDB init to prevent reader slot leakage and runaway storage usage (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Made GIF keyboard widely available to Purple users without need for an API key (Damus Labs) (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Restored signal indicator (William Casarin)


### Fixed

- Fixed issue where mentioned profile names would not render properly (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Fix stale relay list causing inability to disconnect relays (alltheseas)
- Fixed issue where temporary files would not get cleaned up (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Wallet view now immediately clears stale data when switching wallets (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Fixed issue where the app could display an error message when using another NWC wallet in parallel (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Fix memory corruption crash when creating empty filters (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Fixed startup crash when app performs long-running compaction procedure (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Fixed database transaction leak that could lead to higher storage usage (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Fix GIF picker grid tap hitbox selecting adjacent item (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Fixed issues that could cause the signal indicator to become outdated (William Casarin)
- Fixed issue where some of the user's own notes would not show up in their own profile (Daniel D'Aquino)
- Fixed an issue where posts would not appear on the user's own timeline if they did not follow themselves (Daniel D'Aquino)

### 1.16.1 — 2026-02-21

### Added

- Added a view for quotes notes that could not be loaded, including actionable items (Daniel D’Aquino)
- Added relay hint support for nevent, nprofile, naddr links and event tag references (reposts, quotes, replies) (alltheseas)


### Fixed

- Fixed an issue where notes would keep loading indefinitely in some cases (Daniel D’Aquino)
- Fixed Lightning invoice parsing and fetching for all amounts (alltheseas)

### 1.16 — 2026-02-10

In this version (1.16) we have been working on a lot of new things, as well as a lot of improvements deep inside the app to help us grow and scale Damus over the long term!

### Added

- Added Damus Labs
- Added live streaming (Labs feature)
- Added Favorites (Labs feature)
- Added the ability to load saved notes if device is offline
- Added support for scanning nprofile QR codes
- Added relay count and relay view to events
- Added relay hints to tags and identifiers for better loading of content accross different clients
- Completely redesigned and enhanced longform article support, with improved UX for focus, sepia mode, estimated read time, and more
- Added automatic conversion of pasted npub/nprofile to human-readable mentions in post composer
- Added hashtag spam filter setting to hide posts with too many hashtags
- Added profile metadata preloading for improved timeline performance
- Added a pull to refresh feature on DMs that allows users to resync DMs with their relays


### Changed

- Improved performance around note content views to prevent hangs
- Highlight note search results
- Improved draft saving feature to prevent data loss if app closes too quickly
- Changed Damus Purple Side View logo and text
- Optimized network bandwidth usage and improved timeline performance
- Increased NWC wallet transaction list limit to 50 transactions
- Improved loading UX in the home timeline
- Migrated internal app architecture to use the local relay model
- Reduced default zap amount and deduplicated from preset zap amount items
- Changed abbreviated pubkey format to npub1...xyz for better readability
- Improved storage efficiency for NostrDB on extensions
- Changed load media UI


### Fixed

- Fixed broken automatic translations
- Fixed an issue where notifications view would occasionally appear blank when the app started.
- Fixed incorrect behaviour on the post editor that would cause the text cursor to occasionally jump beyond the correct location in some editing operations.
- Fixed several crashes throughout the app
- Fixed an issue where an empty dot would appear on some thread chat views
- Ensure mention profile prefetch covers mention_index blocks
- Fixed an issue where the mute list view may occasionally freeze the app
- Fix mention pills falling back to @npub text when profile metadata is missing
- Improved robustness in several portions throughout the app
- Improved security around note validation
- Fixed multiple crashes throughout the app
- Fix aspect ratio on pasted or uploaded images
- Fixed note content rendering to not remove whitespace before hashtag
- Several fixes to the longform reading experience
- Fixed mentions unlinking when typing text before them
- Fixed cursor jumping behind first letter when typing a new note
- Fixed an issue that would occasionally cause the app to freeze
- Fix issue where your own replies were sometimes not trusted
- Fix issue where search results were out of order
- Fixed repost notifications not appearing in notifications tab
- Fixed a crash that occurred when clicking "follow all" during onboarding
- Fixed wallet view no longer hanging on loading placeholder
- Fixed issue where the app would occasionally launch an empty universe view
- Fixed profile action sheet buttons now centering properly when fewer than 5 buttons are displayed
- Fixed an issue where DMs may not appear for users with a large contact list
- Fixed an issue that could cause certain networking operations to hang indefinitely
- Fixed a race condition in the networking logic that could cause notes to get missed in certain rare scenarios
- Fixed a crash on iOS 17 that would happen on startup

### 1.14 — 2025-05-25

### Added

 - Added safety reminder to wallets with higher balance (Daniel D’Aquino)
 - Added one-click Coinos wallet setup (Daniel D’Aquino)
 - Add notification setting to hide hellthreads (Terry Yiu)
 - Added separated first aid option for relay lists that does not need a contact list reset (Daniel D’Aquino)
 - Added NIP-65 relay list support (Daniel D’Aquino)
 - Added Unicode 16 emoji reactions for iOS 18.4+ by upgrading EmojiPicker (Terry Yiu)
 - Added a search interface to the settings screen (SanjaySiddharth)
 - Added view introducing users to Zaps (ericholguin)
 - Added new wallet view with balance and transactions list (ericholguin)
 - Added copy technical info button to user visible errors, so that users can more easily share errors with developers (Daniel D’Aquino)
 - Add dismiss button to wallet high balance reminders (Daniel D’Aquino)
 - Zap receiver information now included for outgoing zaps (Daniel D’Aquino)
 - Added inline note rendering of invoices to pull up wallet selector sheet (Terry Yiu)
 - Added route to profile page from wallet tx list (ericholguin)


 ### Changed

 - Added additional information on top of blurred images (SanjaySiddharth)
 - Improved robustness of relay list handling (Daniel D’Aquino)
 - Updated image cache for better stability (Daniel D’Aquino)
 - Improved integration with Nostr Wallet Connect wallets (ericholguin)
 - Added relay connectivity information to NWC settings (Daniel D’Aquino)
 - Improved handling around NWC responses (Daniel D’Aquino)
 - Added more human visible errors on NWC wallets to aid with troubleshooting (Daniel D’Aquino)
 - Re-enabled note zaps as permitted by the new App Store guidelines (Daniel D’Aquino)


 ### Fixed

 - Hide future notes from timeline (Terry Yiu)
 - Fixed issue where profiles with a NIP-65 relay list would not display on Damus (Daniel D’Aquino)
 - Fix quote notes to include missing q tag (Terry Yiu)
 - Fixed issue where the side menu would close when copying the npub (SanjaySiddharth)
 - Fixed issue where cached images would be backed up to iCloud (Daniel D’Aquino)
 - Optimized classify_url function (Terry Yiu)
 - Fixed note rendering for those that contain previewable items or leading and trailing whitespaces (Terry Yiu)
 - Fixed issue where some videos would become unplayable after some time using the app (Daniel D’Aquino)

### 1.13.1 — 2025-03-22

### Fixed


 - Fixed an issue where threads would not load properly (Daniel D’Aquino)

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-19.*