I use Alby Hub all the time. I have never paid a sat for it. It is 100% free to host yourself. You only pay Alby if you want them to host it for you.
Your only cost is setting up channels, but that's not Alby. That's just how Lightning works. You have to pay an on-chain fee to set up a Lightning channel, because a channel is just an on-chain UTXO shared by two parties. You also may need to pay your channel partner to keep the channel open, since it locks up their liquidity.
And there are good free options for Lightning wallets. I mentioned Coinos (npub1h2q…w8ch) already. There's also Minibits (npub1kva…tkzv). Both of them can be connected to your Alby extension for free. You don't need to use an Alby wallet with your Alby extension.
Dikaios1517
npub1ku…v3lhe
2025-05-28 17:03:30
in reply to nevent1q…8f9n
Author Public Key
npub1kun5628raxpm7usdkj62z2337hr77f3ryrg9cf0vjpyf4jvk9r9smv3lheSeen on
wss://nostr.winewss://relay.brightbolt.netwss://proxy.nostr-relay.app/37d4c33b6dd11e1553c3d7aabbed24bce9a50fc72f71464d39f8f52ce83becf8wss://relay.damus.ioPublished at
2025-05-28 17:03:30Event JSON
{
"id": "63714504d790f3e7927f6a49c8c43220846268eafb516e1ab743482599bdb692",
"pubkey": "b7274d28e3e983bf720db4b4a12a31f5c7ef262320d05c25ec90489ac99628cb",
"created_at": 1748451810,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"e",
"ff1a444371560ff74e7dc17dd67eed110b95d9818d962830cb588dcfe6647e63",
"",
"root",
"4ec9f1a936c7731fd67ed2ac3d105eb134790a5e97219679ba86968649b6d496"
],
[
"e",
"cc29fc9154809e91a0f9595d9d31d8d0659996fd3cc59b47feb0d62f1b78500b",
"wss://wot.brightbolt.net/",
"reply",
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],
[
"p",
"ba80990666ef0b6f4ba5059347beb13242921e54669e680064ca755256a1e3a6"
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[
"p",
"b33bf9e97b78f35694a02e6bbef8e77059373e42b0a85a63f25a50ebfdadf50d"
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[
"p",
"4657dfe8965be8980a93072bcfb5e59a65124406db0f819215ee78ba47934b3e"
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[
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],
"content": "I use Alby Hub all the time. I have never paid a sat for it. It is 100% free to host yourself. You only pay Alby if you want them to host it for you.\n\nYour only cost is setting up channels, but that's not Alby. That's just how Lightning works. You have to pay an on-chain fee to set up a Lightning channel, because a channel is just an on-chain UTXO shared by two parties. You also may need to pay your channel partner to keep the channel open, since it locks up their liquidity.\n\nAnd there are good free options for Lightning wallets. I mentioned nostr:npub1h2qfjpnxau9k7ja9qkf50043xfpfy8j5v60xsqryef64y44puwnq28w8ch already. There's also nostr:npub1kvaln6tm0re4d99q9e4ma788wpvnw0jzkz595cljtfgwhldd75xsj9tkzv. Both of them can be connected to your Alby extension for free. You don't need to use an Alby wallet with your Alby extension.",
"sig": "aef178a0001eaf595df9bce91f4a9b170896aff26c789aba987a935052e902e28924cbbebc13c2aa1e35acf23975c57447e010c0baa261f46cb6b9df7d356f9e"
}