p2pbuilders

Permissionless · server-less · anon

Where the people building peer-to-peer hang out.

A permissionless, server-less message board for anons who ship P2P — and the front door to the whole Pear ecosystem of real apps.

Open the board in this browser Get PearBrowser What is P2P?

Full peer-to-peer: open hyper://ac1977a75cc84b46af0af8bb559cd4ebbe10507eb0f51d863e289d09635f6d74/ in PearBrowser — same board, real swarm.

pear bare hypercore hyperswarm hiverelay

01 Who we are

We build peer-to-peer because the internet should work without asking permission.

No servers. No sign-ups. No account recovery. No companies to shut down. No terms of service. No one to complain to. Just keys, protocols, and code.

If centralized services are fragile, we work on the alternative. If your data lives in someone else's database, you don't own it. If your identity requires their approval, you don't have one. This isn't a rant — it's a building project.

Anonymity here isn't pretending. It's the default. Everyone on this network is a 32-byte public key. Whatever name you go by is the one you pick.

No permission needed

No gatekeeper sits between you and shipping. Publish a key, you're live.

You are a 32-byte key

Anonymity is the default, not a feature. The name is the one you choose.

Own your data

It lives on your device and syncs peer-to-peer. Nobody else's database.

00 Intro to P2P

How peer-to-peer actually works — without the marketing fog.

Most “decentralized” products still put your identity and posts on a company server. Real P2P is different: your device is the node, your key is your account, and peers exchange signed data directly (or through untrusted relays that cannot forge you).

1 · The web you already know is client–server

You open an app. The app talks to their API. Your posts, friends, and recovery email live in their database. If the company dies, locks the account, or edits the feed, you lose the room. Convenient — and brittle.

P2P flips the roles. There is no master copy. Each participant holds their own data and talks to peers. Availability becomes a network property, not a single company’s uptime page.

2 · Your identity is a keypair, not a username form

On this board (and apps like peerit), you are an Ed25519 public key. When you post, your browser signs the record. Peers verify the signature before they trust it.

  • No email signup · no password reset email · no “prove you’re human” gate owned by a vendor
  • A website or relay can go offline or refuse to carry your data — it cannot forge your key
  • Whoever holds the private key is you. Back it up; there is no “forgot password” department

3 · Each person writes an outbox; everyone merges what verifies

Think of every author as a single-writer log (an outbox): only you append to your stream; others replicate and merge. Feeds and threads are assembled on the device by verifying signatures and stitching records together.

That is the same idea as peerit and the Holepunch/Pear stack under the hood: authenticity is cryptographic, not “the server said so.”

4 · Two doors into the same board

Browser on-ramp

Open /board/ in any modern browser. Keys and signatures stay local. Great for trying the culture and reading the feed. Full multi-peer mesh still depends on relays / swarm as we wire production transport.

PearBrowser (full P2P)

Install PearBrowser, open the live hyper:// drive. Peers discover each other on Hyperswarm — no DNS required for the data plane once you’re on the swarm.

5 · What P2P is not

  • Not “blockchain required.” This board is signed logs and peer sync — not a chain of blocks or a token fee to speak.
  • Not anonymous by magic. Your IP can still be visible to peers you talk to. Identity is key-based; network privacy is a separate layer.
  • Not zero-ops forever. Someone has to keep seeding content (you, friends, or relays like HiveRelay). Relays improve availability; they still do not get to rewrite signed history.
  • Not “no rules.” Communities still moderate. The difference is who can forge speech vs who can hide or refuse to host it.

Try it in under a minute

  1. Open the board — pick a nick, browse announcements, submit a post.
  2. Read a thread: every author line is a key; nothing here required a corporate login.
  3. When you’re ready for full swarm, get PearBrowser and open the hyper:// link under Enter.

Deeper stack notes for builders: docs.pears.com · Holepunch on GitHub · Our stack section

02 The board

A peer-to-peer hacker news that runs on no servers.

Every user is a key. Posts are signed in the client and sync peer-to-peer — same idea as peerit, shaped like Hacker News. Open it in the browser now; open the hyper:// drive in PearBrowser when you want the full swarm.

Hypercore-signed posts

Every post is cryptographically signed by its author's Hypercore. Tamper-evident by construction.

Reputation-weighted voting

Votes carry the weight of the keys behind them. Signal rises without a central moderator.

Browser + PearBrowser

Try the board in any browser, then graduate to PearBrowser for full hyper:// swarm replication.

Announcements tab

Bot-forwarded Pear Dev (Keet) notes and stack releases land under announcements — separate from human threads.

No servers, ever

Nodes find each other on Hyperswarm + HyperDHT. Nothing to host, nothing to seize.

Freedom-first culture

Share your build. Ship in the open. The vibe is anons who actually make things.

Open the board in this browser

https://p2pbuilders.org/board/

Or use the relative path /board/ on this site · full P2P via PearBrowser under Enter.

Enter the board

03 The ecosystem hub

PearBrowser Network catalog · version 3

The curated front door to real P2P apps.

p2pbuilders doubles as the showcase. The catalog lists browser surfaces and companion apps, with browsable links and explicit migration status. HiveRelay supports availability; it never grants native install authority.

Pear POS

point of sale

P2P point-of-sale with AI product recognition and self-custodial USDT / Bitcoin payments via the Tether WDK.

AI recognitionTether WDKself-custodial

Pear Tickets

event ticketing

Offline-capable, signed-Hypercore event ticketing with Lightning, Cashu, and Stripe at checkout.

offline-capableLightningCashu

pearpaste / Paste

notes & clipboard

Local-first, end-to-end encrypted notes and clipboard sync across desktop and Expo mobile.

E2EElocal-firstdesktop + mobile

Pear Dealroom

data room

Zero-infra, E2EE virtual data room for M&A with a signed, tamper-evident audit trail.

E2EEzero-infraaudit trail

PearTube

video

Decentralized P2P video — iOS, Android, and macOS built from a single codebase.

iOSAndroidmacOS

The Board

community

This community's own terminal app — the permissionless P2P hacker news anchoring the catalog.

TUIHypercore-signedlive

Early-stage & demo apps

pear-commsApp-to-app voice / video / messaging SDK.demo
pear-bazaarOffline-first marketplace.demo
pear-exchangeP2P crypto exchange.demo
pear-sanduqOffline bearer-cash wallet on Cashu.demo
pear-ridesGeohash discovery for rides.demo
pear-staysGeohash discovery for stays.demo
pear-homeLocal-first IoT.demo
pear-sahifaAuthenticated offline news.demo
pear-openclawAI-agent orchestration mesh.demo

04 The builder stack

One stack, consistent across every app.

The same primitives power the board and every app in the catalog — running on Pear or Bare, with HiveRelay as the optional always-on availability layer.

Data

  • Hypercore
  • Hyperbee
  • Hyperdrive

Convergence

  • Autobase · multi-writer

Discovery

  • Hyperswarm
  • HyperDHT

Runtime

  • Pear
  • Bare

HiveRelay is the optional always-on availability layer. Pin a drive to HiveRelay and it stays reachable 24/7 even when no other peers are online — without making it a server.

P2P on mobile, for real Pre-alpha

react-native-pear-end runs a real Pear backend — Hypercore, Hyperswarm, HyperDHT, and Autobase — inside React Native, with native UDP via UDX. No WebView, no WSS bridge. It is pre-alpha today.

05 Build & ship

From idea to listed app — no gatekeeper.

No app-store approval. No DNS. No server. Just keys and the network.

Write a Pear app

Build on the stack with Pear or Bare. Your code, your keys.

Publish as a drive

Ship browsable Hyperdrive content with a stable web link. Native releases require their own signed authority.

Pin to HiveRelay

Auto-pin for 24/7 availability so peers can fetch it any time.

List in the catalog

Add it to the PearBrowser Network catalog — it shows up in the browser's app store and the pages index.

06 Enter

Three ways in — same board, different ceilings.

Start in any modern browser. Graduate to PearBrowser when you want full Hyperswarm P2P. Native terminal delivery is a separate migration track and not required to hang out.

1 · Open the board in this browser

Instant on-ramp. Identity and signatures stay in the browser; this origin only delivers static code.

Enter p2pbuilders →

2 · Full P2P in PearBrowser

Install PearBrowser, then open the live Hyperdrive. Peers replicate signed outboxes directly.

hyper://ac1977a75cc84b46af0af8bb559cd4ebbe10507eb0f51d863e289d09635f6d74/

3 · Build with us

Source, schema, and ship scripts live in the open repo — same stack as peerit.

GitHub →