Contents
- What happened: X's legal notice to Nitter
- Before you start: what this list actually is
- Step 1 — Check the currently working instances
- Step 2 — Fall back to a rate-limited instance or a redirector
- Where this gets stuck: the instability nobody's hiding
- Alternatives if Nitter doesn't work at all
- FAQ
- What's still unknown
X sent Nitter a cease-and-desist letter on August 24, 2026, and the flagship nitter.net instance went dark within a day. If you’re here because your bookmarked instance stopped loading, the short version is this: nitter.net and XCancel are still down with no restoration date, but a community-run tracking wiki shows more independent instances working right now than were listed before the letters went out. Below is what’s actually reachable today, in the order I’d try them.
What we checked ourselves
The figures below were not taken from other articles. We checked them ourselves on 2026-09-14 00:56 KST.
Of nine publicly known Nitter instances/redirectors, only one — xcancel.com — actually returned real tweet content (two were unreachable, and six had live servers that returned only bot-blocking challenge pages).
Method: We started from the instance list on the zedeus/nitter GitHub wiki's 'Instances' page (https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances) plus the public redirector twiiit.com. For each domain, we (1) hit the homepage with curl to check the HTTP status code, and (2) requested the /elonmusk profile page with browser-like headers (Chrome UA, Accept, Accept-Language) and then grepped the response HTML for either real tweet markup (the tweet-content and timeline-item classes) or Anubis/Cloudflare bot-blocking text ('Making sure you're not a bot', 'Just a moment…'). twiiit.com issued a 302 redirect to nitter.xitter.cc, which we added to the list.
| Instance | Home HTTP | /elonmusk HTTP | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| nitter.net (official domain) | Connection refused (000) | — | Unreachable |
| nitter.poast.org | DNS lookup failed (000) | — | Unreachable |
| xcancel.com | 200 | 200 | **Real tweets rendered** |
| nitter.tiekoetter.com | 200 | 200 | Anubis bot block ('Making sure you're not a bot') |
| nitter.privacyredirect.com | 200 | 200 | Anubis bot block |
| nitter.xitter.cc (where twiiit.com redirects to) | 200 | 200 | Anubis bot block |
| nitter.kareem.one | 200 | 403 | Cloudflare 'Just a moment…' challenge |
| nuku.trabun.org | 403 | 403 | Cloudflare challenge |
| nitter.catsarch.com | 503 | 503 | Service unavailable (503) |
Caveat: curl doesn't execute JavaScript, so the Anubis/Cloudflare challenges may well pass in an actual browser (which can run JavaScript), revealing content — in other words, these instances aren't 'completely dead', just unusable by a simple script or RSS reader. Also, the instance list was drawn from a single GitHub wiki page and the sample is small at nine — other lists (e.g. instances.neshweb.net) may include different candidates. Instance status can change at any time after the check (2026-09-14 00:56 KST).
What happened: X’s legal notice to Nitter
X Corp’s letters, sent August 24, 2026, gave Nitter until 5 p.m. EST the next day to shut down its instances and pull the project’s code repository. XCancel — a separate service built on Nitter’s code — got its own letter, delivered at 8 p.m. EST that same night.
The legal basis X cited: the Texas Harmful Access by Computer Act and the Lanham Act. The allegation, in X’s words, was “unlawful use and circumvention of X’s Application Programming Interface (API) and associated data” — in plain terms, scraping, unauthorized account access, and session-token violations.
Nitter’s official statement was blunt: “On 24 August 2026 cease and desist letters have been sent by X Corp. demanding a permanent takedown of Nitter instances and the project’s repository.” XCancel’s homepage put it similarly: “On Monday 24th August at 8 PM EST, we received at letter from X Corp. asking to cease and desist the service XCancel.”
Nitter’s creator, who goes by “Zedeus,” told TechCrunch that other instance operators received similar letters too. His statement was short: “nitter.net is offline and development has stopped for the time being. I’m seeking legal advice and won’t be commenting further on the specifics for now.” Nitter’s GitHub repository is now archived and read-only, with explanatory notes added to the README.
For anyone unfamiliar with it: Nitter fetches public X posts and strips out ads, tracking cookies, and JavaScript, giving a lighter, login-free way to read them. Its code also runs other front ends, including XCancel. This isn’t the first time X’s API changes have knocked it offline, either — in January 2024, similar restrictions took nitter.net down temporarily, and the project needed instance hosts to connect to real X accounts just to keep running before workarounds were found.
Before you start: what this list actually is
Worth knowing before you rely on any of this: – This list comes from a single community-maintained wiki, not X or Nitter themselves. – No last-checked or uptime timestamps are published on it — “working” is self-reported by whoever edits the page. – Instances have a track record of dying fast under legal pressure. 6 are already marked “formerly active/taken down” on the same page. – Nothing here confirms when, or if, nitter.net or XCancel come back.
That matters because the headline claim behind this piece — that Nitter now has more working instances than before the takedowns — traces to exactly one source: the codeberg wiki known as “shitter”. Treat it as a starting point, not a guarantee.
Step 1 — Check the currently working instances
As read on September 6, 2026, the wiki’s “Working Instances” section listed 9 clearnet addresses plus 3 Tor-only (.onion) mirrors:
- shitter.thepixora.com
- nitter.kareem.one
- nitter.miningtcup.me
- nitter.meowing.monster
- nitter.xitter.cc
- nitter.jaydenha.uk
- nitter.click
- x.n0g.xyz
- tw.eir-nya.gay
That’s a real jump from the immediate post-shutdown picture. Right after the August 24–25 letters, coverage described Nitter and XCancel as simply down. A separate roundup, updated August 25, 2026, still stated flatly that “Nitter is no longer a working option.” The wiki’s live count, read about 2 weeks later, tells a different story — one specific enough that it’s worth sitting with for a second.
That’s the part other coverage skips. Most of what’s been written about this covers the legal fight, not whether you can actually load a tweet today.
| Tier | Count (per wiki, read Sept 6, 2026) | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Working (clearnet) | 9 | shitter.thepixora.com, nitter.click, x.n0g.xyz |
| Working (Tor/onion) | 3 | listed as onion-only addresses |
| Rate-limited but active | 8 | nt.vern.cc, nitter.fullex.fr, nitter.anoxinon.de |
| Formerly active/taken down | 6 | not individually named in the source |
nitter.net and XCancel specifically are not on any working list. They remain offline or suspended, with no announced return date.
Step 2 — Fall back to a rate-limited instance or a redirector
If a working instance times out or throttles you, the wiki lists a second tier: 8 instances marked “rate-limited but active,” including nt.vern.cc, nitter.fullex.fr, and nitter.anoxinon.de. The rest aren’t individually named in what’s been published.
Rate-limited doesn’t mean broken. It usually means the instance is up but capping requests to stay under the radar or manage load. Worth a retry once the initial surge clears before you give up on it.
There’s also a third option that skips the list entirely: 3 “redirector” services — nitt.tr, twit.0r.cx, and xxcancel.com — sit in front of the instance directory and point you toward whichever one is currently reachable. That’s a reasonable first stop if you don’t want to work through the list by hand every time.
Where this gets stuck: the instability nobody’s hiding
Here’s the part I’d flag before anyone bookmarks a “working” instance and moves on. The wiki page itself doesn’t pretend this is stable — it includes guidance for instance operators on “how to obtain many session tokens” and “how to escape DMCA and other legal complaints.” That’s not a footnote. It means the people running these instances are actively working around the same enforcement pressure that just took down nitter.net and XCancel.
Two names come up that I wouldn’t hang a recommendation on yet. One is Squawker, a Nitter fork on F-Droid said to be updated as recently as June 2026 — unconfirmed. The other is Thread Reader App as a Nitter substitute, with claims of email-only access, bookmarks, and PDF archiving floating around — also unconfirmed. Mastodon and Bluesky show up in lists of “X alternatives,” but that’s a stretch — they’re separate social networks, not tools for reading X content specifically.
My honest read: I wouldn’t build a habit around any single instance right now. The legal pressure isn’t done, and 6 instances are already dead on the same tracker that’s showing 9 working ones today.
Alternatives if Nitter doesn’t work at all
If every instance on the list is down when you check, these don’t require a login either, per Tech Tactician’s roundup (updated August 25, 2026):
- Sotwe (sotwe.com) — search by username, hashtag, or post content; supports media downloads; reported still operational as of August 2026.
- Snaplytics (snaplytics.io/twitter-viewer) — profile viewing and user search, plus image download; works across multiple platforms.
- Twicomi (twicomi.com) — a Japanese, manga/illustration-focused X viewer that stepped in as the replacement for Twoucan, which officially shut down July 30, 2026.
- Google search operator —
site:x.com "keyword"searches only what Google has indexed, but needs no login. - Direct profile URL (x.com/username) — shows a limited, algorithmically filtered set of posts, but a login wall shows up after a bit of scrolling, and comments aren’t visible.
One catch worth naming: the same source that lists these described Nitter itself as “no longer a working option” as of its August 25, 2026 update — true in the immediate aftermath, but outdated next to the wiki’s rebounding instance count 2 weeks later. That gap is exactly why a list like this needs a date attached to every claim, not just a headline.
FAQ
Is Nitter completely shut down? The flagship nitter.net instance and the separate XCancel service are both offline as of this writing, with no restoration timeline from any source. Independent, community-run instances are a different matter — 9 were listed as working on a tracking wiki as of September 6, 2026, though that’s self-reported, not independently verified.
Why did X send a cease-and-desist to Nitter? X cited the Texas Harmful Access by Computer Act and the Lanham Act, alleging unauthorized scraping, account access, and session-token violations. That’s X’s characterization; Nitter’s creator hasn’t commented beyond confirming the letters arrived and that he’s seeking legal advice.
Are these alternative instances safe to use long-term? Not for sure. The tracking wiki has no published uptime history, and 6 instances on the same list are already marked as taken down. Treat any single instance as temporary rather than a permanent fix.
What’s still unknown
Nobody involved has said when, or if, nitter.net or XCancel come back — Zedeus is “seeking legal advice” and isn’t commenting further for now. Whether the rebound in independent instances holds up under more legal pressure is also an open question; the same wiki that’s showing 9 working instances today has already lost 6 the same way. I’d check the instance list again before trusting whatever’s at the top of it, and keep one of the login-free alternatives above bookmarked as a backup.
Image credits
- Photo by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash
- Photo by İsmail Enes Ayhan on Unsplash