Own your communications.
Your people. Your rules. Your money.
A social app where your messages, your communities, and what you earn from them belong to you.
- No email or phone
- End-to-end encrypted
- Open protocol
- Decentralized
Pombo
You decide who gets in.
Five ways to lock a channel
Charge what you want.
Keep every cent.
Put a price and a period on a channel and it becomes a subscription. Your community, behind a door you own.
is what Pombo takes.
Price it in USDC, POL or a token of your own.
Your inbox has an address.
Giving out your Pombo address works the same way as giving out an email or a phone number. Someone has your handle, and they can write to you. The inbox is yours. Set it up once, for a small network fee, and nobody can take it from you.
One protocol.
Any app.
Your account is a key only you hold, and your channels are registered on a permissionless ledger, not on a company's servers. Everything that can be a protocol primitive is one.
How it compares.
Messages, communities, getting paid: plenty of apps do some of it. Underneath, they answer the same questions very differently.
| Feature | Pombo | Matrix | Nostr | Session | Status | XMTP | SimpleX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No sign-up | |||||||
| End-to-end encryption | |||||||
| Private push notifications | Google sees room | per client | server sees groups | iOS, opt-in | Google sees topic | ||
| Explore communities | per server | per relay | official only | by vote | by approval | ||
| Paid communities | 0% fees | ||||||
| Token-gated rooms | not native | ||||||
| Decentralized storage | Status-run | ||||||
| Send money | SOON | ||||||
| Open protocol |
| Feature | Pombo | Signal | Telegram | OnlyFans | Patreon | Discord | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No sign-up | |||||||
| End-to-end encryption | secret chats only | calls only | |||||
| Private push notifications | recipient known | ||||||
| Explore communities | 1,000+ members | ||||||
| Paid communities | 0% fees | >13% fees | 20% fees | >10% fees | ~15% fees | ||
| Token-gated rooms | |||||||
| Decentralized storage | |||||||
| Send money | SOON | region dependent | tips only | ||||
| Open protocol | closed network | open API | paid API | bot API |
Short answers.
Do I need to know anything about crypto?
Mostly no. The app handles it for you. Some actions need a little crypto: POL to create a channel or your inbox, or the token a paid or gated channel asks for.
What does Pombo cost?
The apps are free and Pombo takes nothing from subscriptions. Network fees go to the Polygon network, not to us.
Who can read my messages?
Open channels are public. Protected, Closed, Gated and Paid channels are encrypted for their members, and direct messages for the two people in them. Encryption happens on your device.
Can Pombo censor me?
No. Your account is a key on your device and your channels are registered to your address, so there is nothing for us to suspend or take away. Pombo curates the Explore list in its own apps, but the protocol is open to any client, and a channel can keep its history on several storage providers at once.
What if Pombo shuts down?
Your channels are registered to your address, not to an app, and the protocol and both apps are open source. Anyone can build on them.
Can I use it on my phone?
Yes. The web app installs to your home screen from your browser, and there is an Android app. Both are on the same network, so you can mix them.