declarative relay deployment on hetzner
relay-eval.waow.tech
atproto
relay
add coverage comparison for 2026-03-05
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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docs/coverage-comparison-2026-03-05.md
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docs/coverage-comparison-2026-03-05.md
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# relay coverage comparison — 2026-03-05
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## relays tested
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| relay | operator | firehose | collectiondir | notes |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
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| **relay.waow.tech** | nate (Go/indigo) | yes | yes | Ashburn VA |
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| **zlay.waow.tech** | nate (Zig) | yes | yes | Hillsboro OR |
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| **bsky.network** | Bluesky | yes | yes | reference relay |
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| **europe.firehose.network** | sri | yes | **no** | firehose only |
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sri returns empty/404 for `listReposByCollection` — pure firehose relay.
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## tools used
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- **Pulsar** ([mackuba](https://tangled.org/mackuba.eu/pulsar)) — subscribes to multiple relay firehoses simultaneously, counts events + unique DIDs over a time window
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- coldir-compare script — compares `listReposByCollection` across relay, zlay, bsky.network for all indie NSIDs from lexicon garden
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---
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## 1. firehose coverage (Pulsar, 2 min window)
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| relay | events | unique DIDs |
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|---|---|---|
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| relay.waow.tech | 53,966 | 21,797 |
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| zlay.waow.tech | 52,779 | 21,469 |
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| europe.firehose.network | 46,129* | 19,727* |
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\* sri hit a `ConsumerTooSlow` disconnect ~100s into the 120s window, so its totals are undercounted.
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relay and zlay within ~2% of each other. Both well ahead of sri's partial window.
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---
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## 2. collection directory — io.atcr.*
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| collection | relay | zlay | bsky |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| io.atcr.manifest | 19 | 25 | **26** |
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| io.atcr.tag | 19 | 25 | **26** |
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| io.atcr.sailor.profile | 83 | **90** | 89 |
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| io.atcr.repo.page | 17 | 19 | **21** |
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relay still trails due to ghosts + deactivated accounts it hasn't pruned. bsky gained 1 DID on manifest/tag since yesterday. zlay leads on sailor.profile.
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---
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## 3. collection directory — all indie NSIDs (lexicon garden)
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Paginated counts where initial query hit 1000 cap.
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### zlay leads
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| collection | relay | zlay | bsky | notes |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
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| com.whtwnd.blog.entry | 427 | **698** | 530 | zlay +32% over bsky |
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| blue.linkat.board | 305 | **447** | 304 | zlay +47% |
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| app.bsky.labeler.service | 504 | **667** | 417 | zlay +60% over bsky |
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| com.shinolabs.pinksea.oekaki | 312 | **481** | 314 | zlay +53% |
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| place.stream.broadcast.origin | 331 | **519** | 518 | zlay = bsky |
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| blue.trilinesat.like | 54 | **100** | 100 | zlay = bsky |
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| blue.trilinesat.diary | 83 | **141** | 141 | zlay = bsky |
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| site.standard.graph.subscription | 735 | **1,350** | 1,353 | zlay ≈ bsky |
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| site.standard.publication | 1,166 | **2,071** | 2,077 | zlay ≈ bsky |
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| social.drydown.fragrance | 8 | **13** | 13 | zlay = bsky |
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| social.drydown.review | 8 | **14** | 14 | zlay = bsky |
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| app.fitsky.* | 1-5 | **2-6** | 2-6 | zlay = bsky |
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### tied / close
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| collection | relay | zlay | bsky |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| fyi.unravel.frontpage.post | **75** | 75 | 73 |
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| fyi.unravel.frontpage.vote | 189 | 189 | 189 |
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| tech.manos.twmirror.post | 5 | 6 | 6 |
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| cx.vmx.matadisco | 1 | 1 | 1 |
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| za.co.ciaran.cumulus.* | 1 | 1 | 1 |
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| garden.lexicon.exultant-zebra.* | 1 | 1 | 1 |
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### relay leads
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| collection | relay | zlay | bsky |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| xyz.statusphere.status | **848** | 815 | 815 |
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### zlay gaps (0 results where others have data)
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| collection | relay | zlay | bsky |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| fyi.unravel.frontpage.comment | 78 | **0** | 43 |
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| social.psky.feed.post | 42 | **0** | 0 |
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| studio.voyager.account.autonomy | 11 | **0** | 13 |
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| xyz.atpoke.feed.poke | 1 | **0** | 2 |
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| com.crabdance.nandi.post | 1 | **0** | 2 |
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| social.drydown.house | 8 | **0** | 14 |
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Long-tail collections that zlay's backfill hasn't picked up — either not in lexicon garden's llms.txt or not on bsky.network (psky). social.drydown.house is a new gap since yesterday.
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### bsky leads
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| collection | relay | zlay | bsky |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| fm.plyr.actor.profile | 94 | 94 | **148** |
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| site.standard.document | 677 | 6,051 | **6,094** |
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| xyz.blogosphere.post | 0 | 0 | **1** |
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---
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## changes since 2026-03-04
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| metric | 03-04 | 03-05 | delta |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| Pulsar: relay events (2 min) | 44,871 | 53,966 | +20% |
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| Pulsar: zlay events (2 min) | 44,999 | 52,779 | +17% |
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| bsky io.atcr.manifest | 25 | 26 | +1 |
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| zlay drydown.house | 12-13 | 0 | gap appeared |
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| zlay fm.plyr.actor.profile | 93 | 94 | +1 |
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| bsky fm.plyr.actor.profile | 146 | 148 | +2 |
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---
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## summary
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### zlay wins
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- collection directory coverage on most indie NSIDs — often 30-60% more DIDs than relay, matching or beating bsky.network
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- firehose parity with relay (within ~2%)
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- site.standard.document: 6,051 (vs relay's 677) — nearly matching bsky's 6,094
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### zlay gaps
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- 6 long-tail collections with zero results (frontpage.comment, psky, voyager, atpoke, crabdance, drydown.house)
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- fm.plyr.actor.profile trails bsky by ~36%
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- statusphere trails relay by ~4% (815 vs 848)
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### relay (Go/indigo) gaps
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- trails on most collection directory counts due to uncleared ghosts/deactivated accounts
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- statusphere is the one collection where relay leads
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### sri
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- firehose-only relay, no collection directory support
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- hit ConsumerTooSlow during Pulsar test — may indicate capacity limits