your network, held by no one.
encrypted messaging and file transfer that runs on your devices, not a company's servers. post-quantum, open source and free.
no wifi, no cell, no server. still talking.
the idea
i think messaging and file sharing (communication overall, on the web) should be simple. it's unbelievable to me how u can be in the same room with someone, with wifi, and just to send a simple message, that message has to travel somewhere around the world first, only to reach the person that is in front of you a few ms later. that's why i built this app. if we have devices that CAN communicate with each other, why not do it directly?
nihil has no servers. your identity is a key on your device. your messages go straight to the people you're talking to. and any device you own (a phone, a laptop, a $6 VPS, a Raspberry Pi) can become a hub: your own piece of infrastructure that helps you find contacts, relay when you're offline, and back up your data. spawn one in 30 seconds. spawn a fleet. there's nothing in the middle to seize, sell, or shut down.
what it does
talk anywhere, three channels.
over the internet through a hub, across your local network, or with no network at all, device to device over Bluetooth. same app, whatever the world gives you.
send anything.
any file, any size, end-to-end encrypted and resumable. a 50 GB folder goes straight to your friend, with no cloud, no cap, no upload to anyone's server.
built for the next 20 years of crypto.
forward-secret 1:1 messages, real group encryption, and a post-quantum key exchange, so traffic recorded today stays private against tomorrow's quantum computers.
own your infrastructure.
run hubs on your own devices. back up your identity and history into your own fleet: encrypted, recoverable, yours. if a hub dies, you spawn another.
simple on purpose.
open it. Start talking. no phone number, no email, no account, no onboarding tour. handles are optional.
what this is and is not
nihil is a sovereignty tool, not an anonymity tool. it hides what you say: no server can read your messages or hold your keys. it does not hide your network location, and your identity is a stable key that can be linked across your conversations.
open, free, and yours
the entire codebase is open source under the AGPL. (i'm just cleaning it up for now)
run your own hub
a hub is a normal nihil node doing infra duty: it maps handles to keys and relays discovery. no inbound ports, no TLS, no domain: just outbound internet. so a $6 VPS, an old laptop, or a raspberry Pi is plenty.
# on a fresh Debian/Ubuntu box:
curl -fsSL https://.../deploy-hub.sh | bash
spawn one for your family. spawn a fleet for your org. the more you run, the more resilient and private your network gets