NostrHost: Rethinking Self-Hosting for the Nostr + AI Era

What would self-hosting look like if Nostr identity and modern AI were there from the beginning?

That’s the question behind NostrHost.

NostrHost is a Nostr-focused self-hosting platform designed to make running your own internet services simpler, with your Nostr identity at its centre and AI increasingly helping with administration.

It’s early. It’s evolving quickly. And I’m looking for people who want to help test it, break it and build it.

Self-hosting, reconsidered

Self-hosting gives us something increasingly valuable: control over the services we use and where they run.

But that control traditionally comes with a price.

You have to run the server.

Projects such as YunoHost have made that dramatically easier by turning many server administration tasks into something that can be managed through a web interface.

NostrHost asks what the next step might look like.

What if your existing Nostr identity was understood by the server?

What if Nostr applications could be discovered and installed through Nostr?

What if Nostr-native websites could be installed like any other application and made available on the regular web?

And what if, instead of learning how to administer everything yourself, you could increasingly just tell an AI what you wanted your server to do?

That’s what NostrHost is exploring.

What does that actually look like?

The goal is surprisingly simple.

Open NostrHost.

Browse the built-in application catalogue.

Find an application you want.

Install it.

It appears in your portal alongside your other services.

Behind that simple experience, though, NostrHost is starting to work differently from a conventional self-hosting platform.

Nostr isn’t just another application running on the server. It’s becoming part of how the platform itself works.

It started with YunoHost

NostrHost didn’t begin as an attempt to build another self-hosting platform.

I was using YunoHost and started experimenting with bringing more Nostr applications into it.

That led to packaging Nostr apps.

Then I built a Nostr-based application catalogue.

Then came experiments with Nostr authentication and tools that allowed AI agents to help manage the server.

Each project raised another question.

If Nostr can provide identity, why maintain a completely separate identity system?

If applications can be discovered through Nostr, why does the catalogue need to work entirely like a traditional app store?

If AI can install, configure, test and troubleshoot applications, how much server administration does the person running the server actually need to do?

Eventually, these stopped looking like additions to YunoHost.

They started looking like a different approach to self-hosting.

So I forked YunoHost and started NostrHost.

Your identity comes with you

One of the biggest differences is also one of the simplest.

Normally, when you install a new service, you create another account.

Your server has users. Applications have users. Websites have users. Each system needs some way of deciding who you are.

Nostr already gives you an identity.

NostrHost is being designed around that fact.

Instead of:

“Create an account on my server.”

The model becomes closer to:

“This is me.”

Your identity doesn’t originate with the server. It belongs to you.

The server and the applications running on it can increasingly recognise that identity rather than each creating another version of you.

For self-hosting, that feels like a much more natural starting point.

The Nostr Catalog is built in

Applications are still at the centre of NostrHost.

But application discovery can work differently.

The Nostr Catalog is built directly into NostrHost, allowing Nostr applications to sit alongside other applications and be installed from the same place.

For the person using NostrHost, it should feel straightforward:

Find an app. Install it. Use it.

The difference is underneath.

Applications can be published and discovered through Nostr rather than depending entirely on a conventional central app catalogue.

That gives developers another way to distribute self-hosted Nostr software while keeping the experience familiar for the person installing it.

NSites blur the line between Nostr and the web

NSites show why this gets interesting.

An Nsite can sit alongside other applications in the NostrHost catalogue.

Install one and it appears in the NostrHost portal just like another application.

But NostrHost can also bridge it to the clearnet.

That means someone visiting the site doesn’t necessarily need to understand Nostr, use a special client or know anything about how the content works underneath.

They can simply visit a normal web address.

From the NostrHost owner’s perspective, the Nsite is simply another service their server handles.

That’s the kind of experience I’m aiming for.

Nostr-native technology shouldn’t necessarily feel unusual to use.

AI could change the self-hosting equation

Nostr is only half of this experiment.

The other half is AI.

Traditional self-hosting has always involved a trade-off.

You gain control over your services, but you also become responsible for keeping everything running.

The first generation of self-hosting platforms made this easier by replacing many command-line tasks with control panels and buttons.

AI could be the next step.

Instead of learning which button to press, you tell the server what you want.

“Install this application.”

“Why isn’t this working?”

“Update everything.”

“Make this available to my family.”

The goal is for AI to deal with more of the technical complexity behind those requests, while important actions remain under the owner’s control.

That’s the direction NostrHost is heading.

AI is already helping build it

This isn’t entirely theoretical.

AI agents are already heavily involved in developing NostrHost and its surrounding ecosystem.

They can inspect code, implement changes, review work, investigate failures, test fixes, package applications and repeat the process when something doesn’t work.

That has helped NostrHost evolve quickly.

There’s an interesting symmetry to that.

AI is helping build a self-hosting platform designed so AI can eventually help people operate it.

The development process itself is testing some of the ideas that could eventually make self-hosting easier for everyone else.

Nostr where it makes sense

NostrHost isn’t about replacing technology simply for the sake of decentralisation.

The test is much more practical:

Does using Nostr here make self-hosting better?

Portable identity makes sense.

Discovering Nostr applications through Nostr makes sense.

Using that identity across services makes sense.

Allowing Nostr-native content to reach the conventional web makes sense.

Using signed identity to help control important server actions makes sense.

Where traditional technology remains the better solution, there’s little reason to replace it simply because something newer exists.

The aim isn’t maximum decentralisation.

It’s better self-hosting.

Nostr underneath, simplicity on top

There are substantial changes happening underneath NostrHost.

Authentication is changing. Server management is being redesigned. Conventional components inherited from YunoHost are being reconsidered or replaced. Nostr-native approaches are being introduced where they offer an advantage.

Ideally, most people shouldn’t need to know about any of that.

A successful Nostr-focused self-hosting platform shouldn’t require someone to understand every Nostr protocol any more than using a browser requires understanding HTTP.

You should be able to bring your identity, choose the applications you want and use them.

The complicated technology can stay underneath.

This is where I need help

NostrHost is still early.

It isn’t a finished product, and I’m not pretending that it is.

Things will break.

Some ideas will work. Others will probably be thrown away and replaced. There are still plenty of decisions to make.

That’s also why this is an interesting time to get involved.

NostrHost needs testers and contributors.

If you have a spare server or VM, use Nostr, package applications, develop software, work with AI or simply have opinions about how self-hosting should work, I’d like your help.

Install it.

Break it.

Tell me what’s confusing.

Build something for it.

Tell me where the idea doesn’t work.

Help shape what comes next.

You don’t necessarily need to be deeply technical either. Feedback about what feels complicated, what doesn’t make sense and what you’d expect NostrHost to do is just as useful.

Ultimately, this isn’t really about building another Linux server distribution.

It’s about returning to the question that started the project:

If we had Nostr identities, modern AI and everything we’ve learned from platforms like YunoHost available from day one, how would we design self-hosting today?

NostrHost is my attempt to find out.

Project: https://github.com/imattau/nostrhost