Alby evolved. In the past year we introduced two new products: Alby Hub and Alby Go, joining our known and beloved Alby Extension. This January Alby Hub replaced the Alby shared wallet, which changed the nature of Alby Accounts. The Alby family became a comprehensive ecosystem empowering Bitcoiners in using bitcoin in self-sovereign, but also new, unique and exciting ways. This article guides you through Alby products, their relationship, and related security mechanisms.

What's Common

Let's start with what all of our products have in common. All of Alby products are:

• Open-source,
• Free, with optional paid plans and options to support us in a Value-4-Value way,
• Self-custodial
• Interoperable: Designed to be used with each other and with external wallets and apps of your choice,
• Made with love and passion to increase bitcoin's adoption as a form of money 🧡

The intercoperability of the whole Alby product suite needs to be highlighted here. Alby Hub, Alby Extension, Alby Go and Alby Account can be used all together, to provide a unified bitcoin experience in many domains, but they can also be used on their own with variety of other, external products—wallets, nodes, apps. We give you a ton of flexibility and options to use them in almost any configuration you imagine.

Self-custodial nature of our products and the fact that they can be used as a standalone apps connected with external apps come with some tradeoffs — each product is designed for different platforms, hence they come with different security, key management & connection properties. We're working hard on finding ways to improve and make this setup easier, clearer and more intuitive, and this article is one of the steps towards this.

So let's take a look on Alby's product suite, focusing on:

• What each product is,
• What it can do,
• What are its security and recovery mechanisms and what kind of keys it holds (If any).

Alby Hub

Alby Hub is your own center for the Internet money. It a self-custodial bitcoin lightning wallet that allows you to do more with bitcoin than other wallets you'll find. It's designed with the intention to be used everywhere you want — on the web, within mobile and desktop apps or in physical world while paying for groceries at the store.

While Alby Hub is a full-fledged lightning wallet by itself, it's true magic shows when you connect it to dozens of external apps thanks to the Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC) protocol. Alby Hub has an integrated app store that allows you to connect and use your node directly in apps from categories like social media, payments, financial and merchant tools, games and many other too. Why create a separate, custodial wallet within each app when you can bring your own, self-owned sats and use them directly, on your own rules?

Let's highlight two other unique features of Alby Hub: the ability to create simple sub-wallets for your friends, family and coworkers. You get a simple lightning wallet that can be used with the Alby Extension, Alby Go or an Alby Account without worrying about channel and node management. The other feature is recurring payments: you can schedule periodic, regular payments for donations and subscription services. Something that was not possible not long ago in a self-custodial way, not it's super simple with Alby Hub.

Alby Hub is a powerful tool that does not compromise on user experience, while also maintaining lots of flexibility for power users: we provide great defaults for users to open their first channels and to easily connect to apps, but if you want to dig deeper, you can choose your own channel partners or set detailed permissions for the apps you’re connecting to.

Alby Hub is also the main wallet that you can use with the other Alby products: Alby Extension, Alby Go and Alby Account.

You also have lots of flexibility where and how to run Alby Hub. The simplest and most convenient way is our Pro Cloud plan, that runs your Hub in the cloud and gives you a link to easily access your node everywhere you go. Do you already run a node on Umbrel, Start9 or RaspiBlitz? No problem, just install Alby Hub from the system's app store and use your existing node with extra superpowers. But you can also install it as a standalone app on your own, always online computer, server or cloud.

Access, Keys & Recovery

You enter Alby Hub with an unlock password that protects access to your node. You need to use it every time your node goes offline or after an update — that brings your Hub online again and allows it to perform payments in apps it's connected to. It's important to remember that while you can change your unlock password, it cannot be reset, since it's stored locally. Don't forget to back it up!

To migrate or recover your Alby Hub you use a standard 12-word recovery phrase, that also should be kept in a safe space. To recover your channel states, you can either use a channels backup file manually, or with an Alby Account Pro plan your channel recovery is instant and all you need is your recovery phrase and unlock password.

Alby Hub does not store your Nostr keys, passwords for your Alby Account or Alby Extension.

Alby Extension

Alby Extension is the bridge for your lighting wallets and nodes into the web. It's a browser extension that allows your wallets to safely and seamlessly interact with websites and web apps.

Alby Extension does not have a built-in lightning wallet — it's an interface to wallets or nodes you bring. You can connect not only your Alby Hub and NWC wallets, but also LND, and Core Lightning nodes, LNbits, Blink and others. When connected, you can now log in, pay and receive sats in dozens of websites, without copy-pasting payment details or scanning QR codes.

Another unique feature: Alby Extension can also generate you a special Master Key which is used to derive keys to other protocols that you can interact with on the web: Nostr, liquid network sidechain and on-chain bitcoin. That means with a Master Key you can log in and interact with Nostr apps or safely use a Liquid or on-chain wallet stored in your extension in webapps. And of course, If you own Nostr keys already, you are able to import them and use it with the extension right away.

Access, Keys & Recovery

Access to Alby Extension is protected by an unlock passcode (separate from Alby Hub!). It cannot be recovered, but even if you loose it, you can always reconnect your wallets to a freshly reinstalled extension and set a new passcode.

The Master Key can be recovered with a 12-word recovery phrase. The extension also allows you to override Nostr keys with an existing Nostr key. Those keys are encrypted and stored locally on your computer, and never reach Alby's servers.

Alby Extension does not store any of your wallet private keys.

Alby Go

Alby Go is a dead simple mobile wallet interface to pay with your Alby Hub and other NWC wallets on the go.

You can connect multiple wallets or nodes and pay with them in shops, during events or to people you meet in person. It has an integrated contact list to quickly access friends you often pay to and BTC Map to easily find merchants accepting bitcoin around you.

Alby Go also allows you to confirm new app connections to your Alby Hub on mobile with simple, 1 click confirmation. This way you don't have to open your Alby Hub and copy-paste connection secrets in order to connect apps to your Hub when you're using your phone.

Access, Keys & Recovery

Alby Go can be accessed by your biometrics or have no lock at all if you prefer.

It does not store any of your wallets' or Nostr private keys. It does however store and give you access to connection secrets used to connect an NWC wallet like Alby Hub.

If you reinstall the app, you'll need to reconnect your wallets, as the connection secrets are only stored locally on your phone.

Alby Account

An Alby Account, available on getalby.com, is a web 2.0 account that enhances your experience with Alby products and other NWC wallets, giving you great extra perks and usability improvements. All you need to get your own Alby Account is your email. It's completely optional to use, and you can use all of our products without it.

It's the simplest way to get a lightning address that points to your own node, that can also be used as your unique Nostr identifier. It gives you a personal tipping page you can share on your social media channels. You can use it to log in to some apps not accessible directly via Alby Hub or Alby Extension, especially many Podcasting 2.0 apps. It also allows you to buy bitcoin with a credit card or SEPA transfers directly to your Hub or connected wallet and gives you exclusive offers from companies, shops and events.

Particularly useful for your Alby Hub, an Alby Account provides customizable email notifications informing you when your node goes offline or about statuses of your lightning channels. It also encrypts your Alby Hub channel states which allows you to migrate or recover your node with all your channels online, only using your recovery phrase (applies only to default Alby Hubs with LDK backend).

What's great about an Alby Account is that when it is connected to a sub-wallet from your Alby Hub, that sub-wallet gets its own lightning address, so your onboarded friends or family can enjoy the simplest way possible to receive bitcoin.

It also features a simple wallet UI for any connected NWC wallet (e.g. Alby Hub), that is easily accessible on getalby.com.

Access, Keys & Recovery

You can access your Alby Account by logging in with your email address and a one-time password that arrives in your email inbox or optionally with an email address and a custom password of your choice. The password can be easily reset in case you loose it.

It does not store any of your wallets' or Nostr private keys.

Wrapping Up

The Alby ecosystem is built on a simple yet powerful principle: giving users full control and flexibility while delivering a seamless, interconnected bitcoin payment experience. We’re just getting started. Our mission is to push the boundaries of what’s possible with bitcoin while keeping self-custody and openness at the core. As we continue to refine and expand the Alby product suite, your feedback and support keep us going.

So dive in and explore what works best for you — and shape the future of bitcoin-powered apps and experiences. 🧡