Note On 24 August 2026, cease and desist letters were sent by X Corp. demanding a permanent takedown of Nitter instances and the project's repository. UPDATE: Following legal advice, the Nitter project will continue. More details will be announced soon.

Nitter is a free and open source alternative Twitter front-end focused on privacy and performance, inspired by the Invidious project. It requires no Java Script, displays zero ads, routes all requests through the backend, and prevents Twitter from tracking your IP or Java Script fingerprint. Nitter uses Twitter's unofficial API, so no developer account is required, and is on average around 15 times lighter than Twitter, with timelines loading 2-4x faster. Additional features include RSS feeds, themes, mobile support, and AGPLv3 licensing.

The project is built with Nim and requires libpcre, libsass, and Redis (or the Valkey fork, recommended as of 2024 since Redis is no longer open source). Installation involves creating a nitter user, cloning the repository from github.com/zedeus/nitter, and building with nimble. Nitter should be run behind a reverse proxy such as Nginx or Apache for security.

In the future, a simple account system is planned that lets users follow Twitter users and maintain a clean chronological timeline without needing a Twitter account.