SocialFi platforms ranked on whether your handle and follower list stay yours if the company shuts down, whether you can leave with your audience, who takes a cut of your earnings and whether it is written down, and whose key can override yours.
Ranked here: SocialFi platforms where you build an audience, compared on whether your handle, followers and earnings outlive the app, who takes a cut and whose key can override yours. Not ranked here: renamed apps under their old name, apps that were absorbed, pivoted away or shut down, and chains already ranked elsewhere as infrastructure.
#1 of 8 · published ranking
Nostr
82ChainChoice Score
4199
Why it leads
Nostr scores higher than everything else in this ranking on its handle and graph custody and who outranks my keys.
Show the arithmetic
Best in this ranking on handle and graph custody and who outranks my keys
Cost
Not priced· No comparable price is published
ReviewedNext review by Published Methodology v2026.11.1
How this page is reviewed
Reviewed means every product ranked on this page was read against its sources on or after that date; every ranked category is re-read at least every 45 days. Models research, extract and parse. A deterministic engine ranks. Every quote passes an adversarial refute pass.
No provider can pay for a position in this table. The code that computes this order cannot read which links carry a referral code, and every build proves it. Every score below rebuilds from the published criteria.Ranking v2026.11.1 · 4 criteria · 8 products · same inputs, same order
How we review · 8 ranked of 16 assessed · 4 criteria · 0 sponsor weight
How we review
8ranked
16assessed
4criteria
0sponsor weight
Recommendation first, comparison only if needed.
Reviewed and rechecked on the current cycle.
Commercial relationships disclosed before clickout.
Personal comparison
SocialFi ranked comparison
No comparable price is published; ranking still uses verified product evidence.
RankProviderBest fitScore
1
NostrA public-domain protocol with no compan...Top ranked
Handle and graph custody — 10/10Trade-off: NOBODY OWES YOU DURABILITY, AND NOBODY PAYS YOU. The two failures are the same failur...
82score
Check availability for your country
Nostr · nostr.com. Provider links appear once we know which country you are browsing from: ChainChoice links to providers only where it serves in full.
Commission: This provider pays ChainChoice nothing for this link. Disclosure
Crypto products are high risk. Check the provider is authorised where you live before you deposit.
2
friend.techAn abandoned-by-its-market but still-ma...
Handle and graph custody — 9/10Trade-off: You would be building an audience on a market that has stopped trading. The immutabil...
78score
Check availability for your country
friend.tech · friend.tech. Provider links appear once we know which country you are browsing from: ChainChoice links to providers only where it serves in full.
Commission: This provider pays ChainChoice nothing for this link. Disclosure
Crypto products are high risk. Check the provider is authorised where you live before you deposit.
3
Lens ProtocolOnchain social protocol on Lens Chain w...
Handle and graph custody — 9/10Trade-off: Everything Lens tells you about custody is true, and the one thing it never tells you...
70score
Check availability for your country
Lens Protocol · lens.xyz. Provider links appear once we know which country you are browsing from: ChainChoice links to providers only where it serves in full.
Commission: This provider pays ChainChoice nothing for this link. Disclosure
Crypto products are high risk. Check the provider is authorised where you live before you deposit.
4
Bluesky / AT ProtocolA federated, non-blockchain social prot...
Exit path and somewhere to go — 9/10Trade-off: You can leave Bluesky, but you cannot leave the PLC directory — and by default you ne...
68score
Check availability for your country
Bluesky / AT Protocol · atproto.com. Provider links appear once we know which country you are browsing from: ChainChoice links to providers only where it serves in full.
Commission: This provider pays ChainChoice nothing for this link. Disclosure
Crypto products are high risk. Check the provider is authorised where you live before you deposit.
Same score, not joint · ordered by weighted total (43.90 against 43.70)
5
FarcasterOnchain identity registry on OP Mainnet...
Exit path and somewhere to go — 8/10Trade-off: Your audience is a rental, and your @handle is a licence. The follow graph is not onc...
68score
Check availability for your country
Farcaster · farcaster.xyz. Provider links appear once we know which country you are browsing from: ChainChoice links to providers only where it serves in full.
Commission: This provider pays ChainChoice nothing for this link. Disclosure
Crypto products are high risk. Check the provider is authorised where you live before you deposit.
6
TOTowns ProtocolOnchain group chat where the community...
Handle and graph custody — 6/10Trade-off: YOU CANNOT LEAVE WITH YOUR PEOPLE — YOU CAN ONLY SELL THEM. Towns' exit story is a si...
54score
Check availability for your country
Towns Protocol · towns.com. Provider links appear once we know which country you are browsing from: ChainChoice links to providers only where it serves in full.
Commission: This provider pays ChainChoice nothing for this link. Disclosure
Crypto products are high risk. Check the provider is authorised where you live before you deposit.
2 more assessed and ranked below — none of them hidden for commercial reasons.
Ranked on 4 published criteria weighted 32/27/25/16, which set goal alignment — 30 of the 86 points. The rest: regional access 20 (constant here), evidence depth 18 (constant here), ease of use 10 (constant here), institutional trust 8 (constant here). Profile match is shown in breakdowns but carries no weight.
How you can lose money here, and what the ranking scores
Control failure: a key or vote changes the rules, freezes or mints.
Scored by Whose key can override mine — and what exactly can they do with it? · 16% (Nostr 10/10, friend.tech 8/10, Lens Protocol 2/10)
Custody failure: whoever holds the assets loses or withholds them.
Scored by If this company shuts down tomorrow, is my handle and my follower list still mine? · 32% (Nostr 10/10, friend.tech 9/10, Lens Protocol 9/10)
Exit failure: you cannot get out at par, on time, or with what is yours.
Scored by Can I actually walk out with my audience — and is there anywhere to walk to? · 27% (Nostr 9/10, friend.tech 6/10, Lens Protocol 8/10)
Not assessed by this ranking: Contract failure, Regulatory failure, Execution failure, Information failure. A high place says nothing about these; the Methodology tab says what each means.
Also scored, as cost, quality or a summary of several families: Who takes a cut of what I earn here, and is the number actually written down? (25%).
Audit
Infrastructure
Methodology
2026.11.1
published 10 November 2026
Providers tracked
860+
across 121 categories
Last verified
28 September 2026
newest dated pricing or sentiment read
Named on the roster
2 people
managing directors · 6 automated processes
Decision guide
What matters most before choosing in this category
Weighted on handle and graph custody (32), whether you can actually leave and have somewhere to go (27), the earnings waterfall (25), and whose key outranks yours (16). Custody leads because a follower list you cannot take with you is a rented audience. The last axis is small but decisive: it is what separates a protocol whose data is onchain from one where nobody can override you, and a protocol scoring 9 on custody scores 2 there. Two of the eight score 1 on custody outright. User counts, posting volume and token price are shown as context and are explicitly barred from breaking ties.
If the company shuts down tomorrow, do you still have your handle and your followers?
Has anyone else actually built a client on this data, or is portability only on paper?
Whose key can override yours, and exactly what can they do with it?
Current engine lead
The #1 overall and the scoring weights
NostrData checked Sep 2026
A public-domain protocol with no company in it: your identity is a secp256k1 keypair, your follow list is a kind-3 event you signed yourself, and any relay that will carry you is enough — but nothing in the spec obliges a relay to keep your data and nothing in it pays you.
A public-domain protocol with no company in it: your identity is a secp256k1 keypair, your follow list is a kind-3 event you signed yourself, and any relay that will carry you is enough — but nothing in the spec obliges a relay to keep your data and nothing in it pays you. Strongest on “If this company shuts down tomorrow, is my handle and my follower list still mine?” (10/10): Nostr identity is a keypair and the follow list is an event the user signs. The protocol README says 'When you follow someone you're actually following their public key', and any relay willing to host someone lets them keep publishing to their followers. No company sits in the path. Weakest on “Who takes a cut of what I earn here, and is the number actually written down?” (6/10): Nostr has no protocol fee and no key that could set one; nostr.com/info calls it 'a free and open network that nobody owns or controls'. Tips run as Lightning zaps through the recipient's own server, and the only prices in the system are individual relays' admission fees, such as nostr.wine's 18,888 sats. Published price: NO FIRST-PARTY PRICE EXISTS, AND THIS IS THE PAGE THAT WOULD CARRY ONE.
Best forHandle and graph custody — 10/10
Main tradeoffNOBODY OWES YOU DURABILITY, AND NOBODY PAYS YOU. The two failures are the same failure — there is no counterparty. On storage, the protocol's own export route is stated conditionally: "If one believes a relay will store their events for sufficient time, they can use this kind-3 event to backup their following list and recover on a different device." (https://nips.nostr.com/2). A relay may drop your history tomorrow with no notice, no SLA and no appeal, and "These relays can be hosted by anyone and have any rule or internal policy they want." (github.com/nostr-protocol/nostr) is the whole of the guarantee. You keep the key that proves the notes were yours; you may not keep the notes. On money, a buyer who came to monetise an audience finds no earnings rail with a published rate at all — NIP-57 zaps are peer-to-peer Lightning into whatever lnurl server the creator chose, so the take is set by a third party the protocol never names. And the practical cost lands the wrong way round: paid relays charge YOU to be carried (nostr.wine, 18,888 sats admission, read 17 August 2026), so the only priced flow in the system is outbound.
Verify before signupNO FIRST-PARTY PRICE EXISTS, AND THIS IS THE PAGE THAT WOULD CARRY ONE. https://nostr.com/info (HTTP 200, fetched 28 September 2026) states "Nostr (Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays) is a free and open network that nobody owns or controls." and carries no fee, price, subscription or take rate; its six "fee" substrings are all "feed" or "feeds". The protocol repository https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nostr (HTTP 200, 28 September 2026) gives its licence as "Public domain." The only prices in the system are set by individual relays, and the protocol standardises how they are disclosed: https://nips.nostr.com/11 (HTTP 200, 28 September 2026), "Relays that require payments may want to expose their fee schedules." A live example, https://nostr.wine read with Accept: application/nostr+json on 28 September 2026 (HTTP 200): "fees":{"admission":[{"amount":18888000,"unit":"msats"}]} with "payment_required":true and "payments_url":"https://nostr.wine/invoices" - a one-off admission of 18888000 millisatoshis to that one relay (arithmetic: 18,888 satoshis), unchanged from August. No number was invented.
Weighted criteria
If this company shuts down tomorrow, is my handle and my follower list still mine?32%
Can I actually walk out with my audience — and is there anywhere to walk to?27%
Who takes a cut of what I earn here, and is the number actually written down?25%
Whose key can override mine — and what exactly can they do with it?16%
Methodology
How this category is reviewed
Ranked on four questions: If this company shuts down tomorrow, is my handle and my follower list still mine? Can I actually walk out with my audience — and is there anywhere to walk to? Who takes a cut of what I earn here, and is the number actually written down? Whose key can override mine — and what exactly can they do with it?
The order on this page is the published ranking for this category. Every criterion, weight and source behind it is on the methodology page.
Frequently asked
Questions people ask before choosing SocialFi
Is this not the same as the web3 apps category?
No. web3_apps ranks applications on what they let you do; this ranks social protocols on what you keep when you stop using them. The questions here are whether the handle and follower graph exist independently of any company, whether anyone else has actually built a client on the same data, who takes a cut of what you earn, and whose key can override yours. A client is excluded from this pool for that reason — Warpcast is an app on Farcaster, not a separate protocol, and ranking both would score one thing twice.
Everything here says it is decentralised. How do you separate them?
By reading what a privileged key can do, which is why that axis exists despite carrying only 16% of the weight. One protocol in this pool scores 9 out of 10 on handle and graph custody — genuinely portable, genuinely onchain — and 2 out of 10 on whose key outranks yours. Both facts are true at once, and only one of them appears in the marketing. Two other products score 1 for custody outright. 'Onchain' describes where the data sits; it says nothing about who can revoke your access to it.
Why do user numbers count for nothing?
Because they answer a different question than the one you are asking. Audience size tells you where people are today; this page is about what happens to your audience when you leave, when the app changes its terms, or when the company stops paying its bills. Those are not correlated — the largest network in a category is often the one with the least portable identity. User counts, posting volume and token price are shown as context, and the tie-break rules explicitly bar them from separating two products.
Reviewed28 September 2026Method4 criteriaCategorysocialfi
Not financial advice · For informational purposes only · Always do your own research
