What is Bluesky? Inside the Jack Dorsey-backed rival to Elon Musk’s X
Bluesky is a decentralised social app developed in parallel with Twitter but now completely independent.
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It has been more than two years since Elon Musk acquired Twitter, rebranded it as X, and triggered an exodus of users to alternative platforms. Some, such as Mastodon, Post and Pebble, failed to sustain momentum, while others like Spill carved out niche communities. Meta’s Threads has grown the fastest, but Bluesky, launched from a project initiated by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has quietly built a significant following.
As of February 2025, Bluesky has surpassed 30 million users. Its popularity was fuelled by controversial policy changes at X, including the rollback of the block feature and a decision to allow third parties to train AI models on public posts. These moves, coupled with political shifts following the 2024 US presidential election — which prompted notable communities, including Taylor Swift fans, to leave X — helped propel Bluesky to the top of the US App Store rankings. However, growth has since slowed, and the platform still has considerable ground to cover compared with Threads, which counts more than 275 million monthly active users.
What is Bluesky?
Bluesky is a decentralised social app developed in parallel with Twitter but now completely independent. It uses an open-source framework called the AT Protocol, designed to give users transparency into how the platform is built and operates.
The app closely mirrors X’s user experience, with posts limited to 256 characters that can include photos, likes, reposts and replies. Users can follow others, view updates in their home timeline, and explore algorithmic feeds through the Discover tab, which replaced the earlier What’s Hot section.
Bluesky also offers features such as Starter Packs, curated lists to help new users find communities, and recently introduced a vertical video feed to compete with TikTok. In January 2025, a new video tab was added to user profiles. Direct messages — initially absent — have been rolled out with emoji reactions, though they currently only support one-to-one conversations.
Jack Dorsey unveiled the Bluesky project in 2019 while serving as Twitter’s CEO, initially presenting it as a decentralised standard for social media that Twitter itself might adopt. After Musk’s takeover, the project evolved separately. Bluesky became an independent public benefit corporation in 2021 and is now led by CEO Jay Graber. Dorsey stepped down from its board in May 2024.
Unlike X, Bluesky has said it has “no intention” of using user content to train generative AI models, though it acknowledges that third parties could still do so.
Is it free?
Yes. Bluesky is now open to the public at no cost, positioning itself as a decentralised, community-driven alternative to X while continuing to expand its tools and features.
