Damus — Nostr Scrutiny fact sheet

Checked on 2026-10-24. Facts and sources only: no score, no verdict.

What it is: a Nostr client for iPhone, iPad and Mac. There is no web client: damus.io is its website. damus.io

Who is behind it

App Store: sold by Damus Nostr, Inc. Current version 1.17, of 2026-06-03. App Store
No Google Play listing.
No NIP-89 app announcement (kind 31990) was found for Damus on four large relays.

From its source code (latest commit, 2026-09-09):

The key is kept in the iOS Keychain.
No support for remote signers (NIP-46) or external signer apps was found in the code: the private key is entered in the app.

Open source, GPL-3.0 licence. Last commit: 2026-09-09. No tagged releases on GitHub. Repository
The current App Store version (1.17) is older than the last commit; the code alone does not show which commit it was built from.

Privacy policy: one sentence: "Damus doesn't store any information about you other than the posts which you make, which are published to the damus relay as well other relays if configured." No date. Privacy policy
Error reports: the app includes Sentry for error and diagnostics reporting, behind a setting ("Enable Error & Diagnostics Reporting") that is off by default. The privacy policy does not mention it.
The website (not the app), opened as a first-time visitor, loads Cloudflare's analytics script (static.cloudflareinsights.com) and a form from tally.so. It sets no cookies and sends no security headers such as a Content-Security-Policy.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/damus/id1628663131
Repository: https://github.com/damus-io/damus (settings: damus/Features/Settings/Models/GlobalSettingsStore.swift, enable_sentry_telemetry, default false)
Privacy policy: https://damus.io/privacy-policy.txt
Collected data: data/damus/2026-10-24.json in the Nostr Scrutiny repository