The Bluesky social network seems to be on the rise. This week, the social media platform moved up to No. 5 in the US App Store's free apps section, ahead of TikTok and Instagram. That's up from 181st place a week ago, according to TechCrunch, which cites numbers from app intelligence company Appfigures.

On Thursday, Bluesky published a post announcing that it had welcomed 500,000 people in just one day.

“First day here,” one Bluesky user wrote in response to the company’s post about its growth. “Just getting my feet wet. Been a long time Twitter user, but it's just a shell of what it used to be.”

Bluesky is a social media platform that shares many similarities with X, formerly known as Twitter. At

On Wednesday, X announced it was changing its blocking feature, which allows users to prevent others from seeing their messages on the site. Accounts that have been suspended can now view that person's posts

“It doesn’t block,” one X user replied. “It supports stalking.”

X also updated its terms of service to require any user lawsuits against the service to be handled by a federal court in North Texas, “whose judges often give victory to conservative litigants in political cases,” The Globe and Mail reports.

These recent changes may have sparked the growing interest in Bluesky, which saw a surge in user accounts earlier this year when X was banned by courts in Brazil (the ban was later lifted when X paid a fine). According to the New York Times, users say Bluesky is the closest app to X.

Here's everything you need to know about Bluesky.

How do I log on?

Originally, Bluesky was invite-only, but since February it has been open to everyone. To join, simply go to the main page to create an account. You can download the Bluesky app for iOS or Android or use Bluesky on your desktop.

You will be asked for your email address and phone number (to send an authentication code) and will be asked to choose a username and password. Then you're there.

How is Bluesky similar to X and Threads?

If you're familiar with X, Bluesky's design and purpose should make sense to you.

The site uses vertically scrolling messages with small round photo avatars for users and icons below the messages showing how many comments, likes and reposts they have received. It looks pretty similar to X-Format and Metas Threads, currently the best free app in the App Store.

Who is behind it?

Here's another Twitter/X connection: Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey used to be on the board and the Bluesky project started in 2019 when he was Twitter CEO. Jay Graber is the CEO of Bluesky.

Even Bluesky's name is related to X's previous name. Dorsey confirmed a Bluesky user's suspicion that the name was related to Twitter's bird mascot, as the idea was that the bird could fly even more freely in an open blue sky. Dorsey left the board in May, apparently because the service had added moderation tools.

Even though the S in “Sky” is not capitalized in the website name, it is pronounced “Blue Sky.” Don’t rhyme it with “Brewski.”

The app is based on the so-called Authenticated Transport Protocol (AT), a social media framework created by the company that consists of a network of many different websites.

And how is Bluesky different?

Domains as handles

On the one hand, you can set your domain as a handle if necessary. This could help with verification, which became a heated topic for Twitter when Musk began removing blue checkmarks from verified accounts that refused to pay a monthly fee.

“For example, a newsroom like NPR could set its username to @npr.org,” the company’s Bluesky Social blog says. “Then any journalists NPR wants to verify could use subdomains to set their handles to @name.npr.org. Branded accounts could also set their handle as their domain.”

moderation

The moderation is also different. Another blog post states that Bluesky already uses automated moderation and is working on a community flagging system described as “something like shared mute/block lists.”

Users of many social media platforms are shown posts from a feed selected for them by an algorithm. However, you can influence this by following or blocking certain accounts. But Bluesky wants to give you the ability to choose from a variety of different algorithms to determine what you see.

You can mute accounts, so you can't see notifications or top-level posts from them, or you can lock accounts, which goes a step further and means you and the other account won't see or interact with each other's posts can. And you can report posts or accounts for abuse.

Some features—the ability to hide replies to your posts and separate your posts from the posts of other users who quote your posts—are intended to prevent clustering and other harmful behavior.

Maintain connections

It's possible that creators who gain a following on Bluesky will one day be able to maintain a connection with those who follow them, even as the service itself changes.

Custom feeds

Algorithms are the rules that determine how content is filtered and recommended to users. Bluesky has something called custom feeds that allow you to choose the algorithm that determines what you see.

“Imagine you want your timeline to only contain posts from your mutuals, or only posts with cat photos, or only posts related to sports – you can simply select the feed of your choice in an open marketplace,” one says Blog post on the website says. A longer post goes into more detail about custom feeds and algorithmic selection. Click the hashtag icon at the bottom of the app to add and discover new feeds.

Developers can use the site's feed generator starter kit to create a custom feed, and the site promises that the tools will eventually be simple enough for the rest of us to create custom feeds.

Reviews

The CEO of The Onion Ben Collins tweeted In April 2023, while a tech reporter for NBC, he noted that Bluesky “works, looks, and feels exactly like (Twitter)” and praised the site's “moderation, desktop experience, and reliability.”

As of October 18, the site has a rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars in the Apple App Store. “Feels like the early days of Twitter, but more organic,” wrote one reviewer.

Who uses it?

Here's a small list of some of the people and groups you'll see posting on Bluesky, although some post more than others.