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Languages and libraries
social networking protocol
SHOW HN2026
414points
218comments
#78of 4,366 in 2026
Top 2%of 2026 by points
How HN took it
CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments
5 positive, 37 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 27 critical, out of 72 comments about the project. Thread score -0.28.
Idea: 3 for, 12 againstDesign: 0 for, 9 againstPrivacy: 1 for, 2 againstDocs: 0 for, 2 againstExecution: 0 for, 2 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Interesting, novel decentralized design
From 2 comments
I really like solutions in this space, and this is quite nice. Seeing people try create solutions like this really tickles my brain a lot. Even if I think more into it and…
1dom on HNAmazing. I'm building almost the exact same thing. I'll share mine when it's mature enough. :D
MattCruikshank on HN
Simplicity of static-site approach
From 1 comment
Very interesting idea, love the simplicity. Question about this: “Threads are positioned in the timeline by the original post’s created_at; replies within a thread are sorted by…
Goofy_Coyote on HN
Objections
Too dependent on encryption and key management for non-technical users
From 3 comments
This suffers from the same problem that so so so many alternative social, federated, self-hosted ideas suffer from. Matrix, keybase, pgp, etc. It’s too dependant on encryption.…
kennywinker on HN> Right after initialization you'll be prompted to export the private key and store it somewhere safe, e.g. your password manager Having seen enough story in the vein of "if only…
pibaker on HN> The private key is stored in the browser’s localStorage. Woah.. when will those people learn? _Any_ browser storage is unreliable. Anything goes wrong with your web experience?…
theamk on HN
Private key stored in localStorage risks loss
From 1 comment
> The private key is stored in the browser’s localStorage. Woah.. when will those people learn? _Any_ browser storage is unreliable. Anything goes wrong with your web experience?…
theamk on HN
Identity tied to domain names inherits DNS centralization
From 1 comment
> A user’s identity is their domain name. That's dead on arrival. The domain name system is one of the core reasons why everything has become so centralized in the first place.…
grumbel on HN
Follow/unfollow friction and reply hiding limit scaling
From 1 comment
I really like solutions in this space, and this is quite nice. Seeing people try create solutions like this really tickles my brain a lot. Even if I think more into it and…
1dom on HN
Requests
Use .well-known path for discovery document
From 2 comments
> By convention, the client looks under /satellite/ by default. If that path is already taken, place a satproto_root.json file at the domain root containing { "sat_root":…
neilv on HNThe .well-known/ suggestion from neilv is worth taking seriously. It's an IANA-registered convention that already has broad adoption — security.txt, robots.txt equivalents, app…
selfradiance on HN
Post-quantum key encapsulation instead of X25519
From 1 comment
have you considered Replace X25519 with a post quantum cryptography key encapsulation mechanism like kyber or saber?
wordglyph on HN
Demo video
From 1 comment
This needs a YouTube demo video.
givemeethekeys on HN
Questions
Why not use Nostr or RSS instead
From 3 comments
I'm curious why not use Nostr?
mkfain on HNWhy not at the every least use RSS for Posts? Why invent a new json spec? Wouldn't it make more sense to build this around RSS?
theknarf on HNNostr https://nostr.com/
flaxxer on HN
How is feed aggregation scaled with polling
From 1 comment
Interesting approach. The static-site constraint is clever for self-sovereignty but I wonder how feed aggregation scales once you follow more than a handful of people - you're…
vexnull on HN
How are identity and spam handled
From 2 comments
Static hosting and CDN distribution solves a lot of the traditional scaling issues, but moderation and identity usually become the hard parts in decentralized systems. Curious…
sriramgonella on HN> A user’s identity is their domain name. That's dead on arrival. The domain name system is one of the core reasons why everything has become so centralized in the first place.…
grumbel on HN
Alternatives named
Nostr
From 2 comments
Funny to see people mention nostr https://satellite.earth/ (Satellite nostr client) https://nsite.run/ (literally static sites on nostr)
lovvtide on HNSigned JSON reminds me of Nostr. I wish Nostr was somehow more mainstream.
koolala on HN
RSS
From 2 comments
Just use RSS at that point. I don't see the value of encrypting everything, like people are gonna be spying on your random static blog entries.
James_K on HNIsn't this just RSS with extra steps?
turlockmike on HN
Org Social
From 2 comments
It reminds me a lot of Org Social
andros on HNSee also org social: https://github.com/tanrax/org-social
dharmatech on HN
TWTXT
From 1 comment
So, in essence this is very, very similar to TWTXT (https://github.com/buckket/twtxt). I'd imagine that similarly to TWTXT, this suffers from the same accessibility and barrier…
hxii on HN
Webmention
From 1 comment
satproto's implementation involves complex cryptographic signing and that makes it very not static. One needs to run a program of some sort to use satproto. The only static part…
superkuh on HN