From Wikipedia - Reading time: 4 min
Typical microblog display page for a Nitter instance, showing Twitter user with tweets | |
| Developer(s) | Zedeus (and contributors) |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 19 June 2019 |
| Stable release | 2024.01.12-52db03b
/ 12 January 2024 |
| Repository | github |
| Written in | Nim, SCSS, Python, CSS, JavaScript |
| Operating system | Unix-like |
| Platform | Web |
| License | AGPLv3+[1] |
| Website | nitter |
| As of | 29 October 2023 |
Nitter is a free and open source alternative viewer for Twitter, focusing on privacy and performance.[2][3]
The user interface was designed to be minimalist and resemble the classic Twitter desktop layout.[3][4] Since the user could not log in to Twitter through Nitter, Nitter had no notifications, no home feed, and no ability to tweet. By default, Nitter had no infinite scroll.[5] It had no ads or tracking, and the timeline was in chronological order.[4] Nitter relied on a glitch that allowed creating a large amount of "guest accounts" using proxy servers in order to fetch content.[6]
In addition to the official web instance, there are unofficial public web instances, as well as community-contributed mobile apps and browser extensions.[7][5]
Nitter was funded by donations as well as a grant from NLnet's NGI fund.[8]
Nitter was officially discontinued in February 2024. The developer had announced the project was "dead" after Twitter removed the guest account feature, on which Nitter relied, in January 2024.[6] Some instances had previously stopped working some months before due to changes to the Twitter API.[9] The developer stated instances could be self-hosted by having users use their own account, at the risk of the account being banned.[10]
On 6 February 2025, Zedeus announced that the project was back on GitHub Discussions.[11]