Is the grass greener on the other side? Maybe. But for millions of users, the sky is definitely bluer. Since Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, now called X, a wave of people have tested new social platforms. While some competitors fizzled out, Bluesky has surged. As of February 2025, the decentralized social network has crossed 30 million users—propelled by controversial policy changes at X, an influx after the 2024 U.S. election, and growing interest from communities seeking safer, open alternatives. Growth has cooled recently, though, and Bluesky still trails Threads, which reports 275 million monthly active users.
What is Bluesky?
Bluesky is a decentralized social network built on the open-source AT Protocol. It was initially envisioned by Jack Dorsey in 2019 as a standards project, separate from any single platform. Today, Bluesky operates as an independent public benefit corporation led by CEO Jay Graber, with Dorsey no longer on the board as of May 2024. Its core ideas are algorithmic choice, a federated design, and community-level moderation—giving users and developers more control and transparency than traditional, centralized networks.
How to use Bluesky
– Sign-up and handles: Create a handle like @username.bsky.social, plus a display name. You can also use a domain you own as your handle for added credibility and portability.
– Posting: Write posts up to 256 characters, add photos, and interact by replying, reposting, or liking. A three-dot menu lets you report, share via your device’s share sheet, or copy text.
– Feeds and discovery: Your Home timeline shows people you follow. A personalized Discover feed highlights trending and relevant content and has replaced the older What’s Hot feed.
– Starter Packs: New users can jumpstart their experience with curated packs that bundle recommended accounts and custom feeds to follow.
– Profiles: Expect a profile picture, header image, bio, follower counts, plus tabs for posts and posts & replies. In January 2025, Bluesky added a video tab to user profiles.
– Vertical video: Also introduced in January 2025, a vertical video feed brings a familiar swipeable format for short-form clips.
Who’s on Bluesky?
A growing roster of public figures and creators have joined, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mark Cuban, Quinta Brunson, Dril, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Guillermo del Toro, Barbra Streisand, and Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Major newsrooms such as Bloomberg and The Washington Post are active, and since August 2024, heads of state have been welcome. In 2025, high-profile U.S. political figures like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton set up accounts. By May 2025, Bluesky began verifying notable users with blue checkmarks, similar to early Twitter-era verification.
Does Bluesky work like X?
In many ways, yes—short posts, replies, reposts, and likes feel familiar. Direct messages are now built in, complete with emoji reactions, though they’re limited to one-to-one chats for now. The team has expressed interest in features akin to Community Notes, and Trending Topics is in testing. Bluesky is also developing a dedicated photo-sharing app called Flashes, expected to enter beta soon.
Why are some users choosing Bluesky over X?
Policy changes at X have nudged users to explore alternatives. A revision to the block feature now allows blocked users to view your profile and posts, though they can’t interact—an approach some see as a safety risk. Bluesky’s block remains traditional. There’s also growing concern about AI training on user content. Bluesky says it has no intention of using your posts to train generative AI tools, contrasting with broader data-use policies elsewhere. However, as with any public platform, third parties may still attempt to scrape content.
Is Bluesky free?
Yes. The service is now open to the public without an invite.
How does Bluesky make money?
Bluesky aims to sustain the network without relying on targeted ads or selling user data. Early monetization includes paid services like custom domains for user handles. In November 2024, the company raised a $15 million Series A and began developing a subscription offering, tentatively called Bluesky+. Early mockups suggest perks like higher-quality video uploads and advanced profile customization, without a “pay to win” feed boost model. In December 2024, the Skyseed fund launched with $1 million in grants to support developers building on the AT Protocol.
Is Bluesky decentralized?
Yes. Bluesky runs on the AT Protocol, which is designed for federation. While most users currently join the default bsky.social server, the long-term vision is a network of interoperable servers. That would let you choose a provider, move your account without losing followers, and tap into different moderation approaches or algorithms—all while staying connected to the wider ecosystem.
Bluesky at a glance
– Users: 30+ million as of February 2025
– Key growth drivers: X policy changes, the 2024 U.S. election, and community migration
– Features: 256-character posts, photos, DMs with emoji reactions, Discover feed, Starter Packs, vertical video, profile video tab
– In development: Trending Topics, Flashes photo-sharing app
– Verification: Blue checkmarks for notable accounts (as of May 2025)
– Monetization: Custom domains, upcoming Bluesky+ subscription, developer grants via Skyseed
– Philosophy: Open-source, user choice, and community-led moderation on a federated network
Bottom line
If you’re looking for a Twitter-style experience without the lock-in of a centralized platform, Bluesky is one of the most compelling social media alternatives right now. It isn’t as large as Threads, but its steady feature rollouts, transparent protocol, and user-first moderation tools make it a serious contender for your time and attention.Bluesky wants social media to work the way the open web was meant to: portable, customizable, and not controlled by any single company. Built on the open AT Protocol, it lets communities and apps flourish independently while staying connected. If a developer creates a new social app on AT Protocol, your identity, handle, followers, and posts can move with you. You’re not locked in by a platform’s algorithm or policies, and your relationships go wherever you go.
What is the AT Protocol?
AT Protocol is a decentralized network for building social apps. Bluesky itself is one app built on this foundation. Think of it as a modern reimagining of Web 2.0—social media, blogs, wikis, video and photo sharing—rebuilt on open technology instead of centralized, closed services. By design, this architecture shares power with users and developers, not just the protocol’s creators.
Centralized platforms can foster developer ecosystems with APIs, but access can be restricted or revoked at any time. The backlash to API changes at Reddit in 2023 showed how fragile those ecosystems can be when they depend on a single company’s policies.
What’s being built on AT Protocol?
A growing ecosystem of third-party, consumer-facing apps is emerging. Examples include:
– Flashes, a photo viewing client
– Spark, a TikTok-style experience
– Skylight Social, backed by Mark Cuban
Beyond social clients, developers are building cross-posting tools, music integrations, feed builders, and livestreaming apps—taking advantage of open standards instead of being trapped in closed platforms.
Is Bluesky secure?
Security has steadily improved:
– October 2023: Email verification arrived to strengthen account authentication and bring security closer to what larger networks offer.
– December 2023: Following user feedback, Bluesky allowed users to opt out of exposing posts to the public web.
– December 2024: The Safety team toughened its impersonation policy, stating that impersonation and handle-squatting accounts will be removed. The company is also exploring alternatives to domain-based handle verification.
– May 2025: Blue check verification was added to make it easier to confirm notable figures. Unlike X, users cannot buy this designation.
How customizable is Bluesky?
Customization is a core feature:
– May 2023: Bluesky introduced custom feeds—custom algorithms you can subscribe to, pin to your timeline, and manage from the My Feeds menu.
– March 2024: The AT Protocol Grants program launched to fund projects that expand customization and growth. One grantee, SkyFeed, lets anyone build feeds with a graphical interface.
Where can you use Bluesky?
Bluesky is available on iOS, Android, and the web.
How does Bluesky address misinformation?
Since October 2023, the app has warned users about potentially misleading links. If the text in a post doesn’t match the linked destination, you’ll see a “possibly misleading” notice, helping you avoid unwanted redirects.
What moderation tools does Bluesky offer?
– December 2023: More advanced automated tooling began flagging potential Community Guidelines violations for human review. Users gained features similar to other platforms, including user lists, moderation lists, and reply controls. Some users still want a private account setting.
– March 2024: Bluesky launched Ozone, a toolkit for running independent moderation services. This gives communities unprecedented control over their social media experience.
– October 2024: Bluesky made a push to engage users frustrated with moderation issues on other platforms.
– January 2025: A 2024 moderation report noted a 17x increase in moderation reports amid rapid growth. Most reports involved harassment, trolling, or intolerance. To keep pace, the moderation team expanded to roughly 100 people, with more hiring planned.
– August 2025: Community Guidelines were revamped to help shape healthier community norms.
Has Bluesky faced controversies?
Yes. From the start, moderation has been a flashpoint. Critics say Bluesky has not always protected marginalized users or adequately moderated racist content. After a period when slurs were allowed in account handles, users organized a posting strike to demand guardrails that would block slurs and offensive terms in usernames.
In December 2024, controversy resurfaced when writer and podcast host Jesse Singal joined. Following mass reports from users, Bluesky banned, reinstated, and then labeled his account intolerant under its moderation service—drawing debate about consistency and standards.
As the user base has grown, some argue the culture skews left-leaning, potentially because many joined as an alternative to X. Others, including high-profile users like Mark Cuban, have voiced frustration with discourse quality. Still, Bluesky’s architecture empowers people to tailor their experience through feeds, filters, and independent moderation.
How is Bluesky different from Mastodon?
Both use decentralized architectures, but many find Bluesky easier to onboard and navigate. Mastodon can feel intimidating due to its server-based sign-up and strong posting norms among longtime users. Mastodon has simplified onboarding by making mastodon.social the default server.
Federation on Bluesky will make it work more like Mastodon in one key way: you’ll be able to choose servers and move your account more freely across the network.
Who runs Bluesky?
Jack Dorsey funded the project early on, but he’s no longer involved in daily operations and has left the board. The CEO is Jay Graber, formerly a software engineer for Zcash and founder of the event-planning platform Happening.
The bottom line
Bluesky is building a decentralized social web where identity is portable, algorithms are optional, and moderation can be community-driven. With custom feeds, developer grants, third-party apps, and evolving safety tools, it’s shaping up as a compelling alternative to traditional, centralized social networks. This overview is updated over time as the platform and protocol continue to evolve.
