Flotilla
Knowledge Base

Getting Started

Getting started By Jon Staab 3 min read

Two ways to create a Flotilla account — a simple email sign-up or generating your own key — plus how to log in with an existing profile.

Getting Started

Part of our guide to running an online community you actually own.

To get started, visit app.flotilla.social. You’ll be welcomed with two choices: Log in, if you’ve been here before, or Create an account, if you’re new.

Click Create an account and you’ll be offered two ways to sign up: the quick way, with an email and password, or by generating your own key. They lead to the same place — the difference is just who looks after your account’s key. Pick whichever suits you; you can always switch later.

Sign up with email

This is the simplest way in, and a good choice if you’re new to all of this.

  1. On the “Join Flotilla” screen, choose Sign up with email.
  2. Enter your email address and a password (at least 12 characters). Behind the scenes, Flotilla still creates a real, self-owned identity for you — it just splits the key across several servers and locks it with your password, so it stays safe without you having to keep track of anything. As the app puts it: if you’re not ready to take control of your keys yet, that’s fine, and it’ll hold them for you until you are.
  3. Check your inbox for a one-time confirmation code and enter it to verify your email.
  4. Fill out your profile — a name, a picture, a short bio. All of it is optional, so add as much or as little as you like, then continue.

That’s it. From then on you can sign in on any device with your email and password (or a one-time code if you forget it), and you can graduate to holding your own key whenever you feel ready.

Generate your own key

This path gives you full control from the start: instead of an account a company issues and can revoke, you get a key that belongs to you, so no one can lock you out or take your identity away. (See Understanding Your Nostr Identity for what that key actually is.)

  1. On the “Join Flotilla” screen, choose Generate a key. Flotilla creates a new key and stores it in your browser.
  2. Fill out your profile — a name, a picture, a short bio, all optional — then continue.
  3. On the “Your Keys are Ready!” screen, click Download my key to save a backup file. If you’d like extra protection, choose “I want to download an encrypted version” and set a password (at least 12 characters) first. You have to download the key before you can move on.

Keep that file somewhere safe, like a password manager — Bitwarden is a good free option. This is the one step to take seriously: your key is your account, there’s no “forgot password” reset, and if you lose it or it’s stolen you lose access to your identity for good. The backup also lets you log in to other Nostr apps with the same profile.

Already have an account?

If you’ve used Flotilla or another Nostr app before, choose Log in on the welcome screen instead and bring your existing key in. There are several ways to do that, and some are safer than others — see Ways to Log In to Flotilla for the full rundown, and Understanding Your Nostr Identity if you’d like the bigger picture first.

You’re in

However you signed up, you’ll land on your dashboard, ready to connect with your community — join a space someone has invited you to, or start one of your own.