--- title: Bluesky’s active user base is shrinking as its focus... description: Bluesky's mobile app has lost over half its monthly active users since its late-2024 post-election peak, with June 2026 showing 10.4 million monthly active... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/bluesky-s-active-user-base-is-shrinking-as-its-focus-expands-beyond-the-app-lsydq1hj8 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Bluesky’s active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app | daily.dev og:description: Bluesky's mobile app has lost over half its monthly active users since its late-2024 post-election peak, with June 2026 showing 10.4 million monthly active... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/bluesky-s-active-user-base-is-shrinking-as-its-focus-expands-beyond-the-app-lsydq1hj8 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/LsydQ1hj8.png og:image:alt: Bluesky’s active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Bluesky’s active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app **[TechCrunch](https://daily.dev/sources/tc)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Bluesky's mobile app has lost over half its monthly active users since its late-2024 post-election peak, with June 2026 showing 10.4 million monthly active users — down 27.2% year-over-year. Daily active users also fell 25.6% year-over-year in July to around 3 million. Despite the decline, remaining users show solid engagement with a ~29% stickiness rate, comparable to Threads. Bluesky's new CEO Toni Schneider appears less focused on the app itself and more on growing the AT Protocol ecosystem, which now powers projects like BlackSky, Eurosky, and Skylight. Meanwhile, Threads is surging with 147 million daily active users in July, up 21.3% year-over-year, while X's mobile usage is also slightly declining. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How many monthly active users does Bluesky have in 2026? Bluesky had 10.4 million monthly active users worldwide on mobile in June 2026, down 27.2% year-over-year, per Similarweb data. This compares to a quarterly average of roughly 22.1 million monthly active users in Q4 2024, representing a decline of around 52% from its post-election peak. Bluesky itself reports nearly 46 million registered accounts but does not publicly share active user figures. _Developers and founders tracking decentralized social platform growth follow these numbers on daily.dev._ ### How does Bluesky's user engagement compare to Threads in 2026? Bluesky's stickiness rate — the ratio of daily to monthly active users — was roughly 29% in June 2026, about the same as Threads. However, Threads far outpaces Bluesky in raw scale, with 147 million daily active users in July 2026, up 21.3% year-over-year, versus Bluesky's approximately 3 million daily active users. _Those building on or competing with social platforms track these shifts on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 360 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-08-12). **TL;DR:** Discussion centers heavily on Bluesky's perceived political homogeneity and algorithm quality, with many arguing the platform has become an ideological echo chamber that alienates casual users, while others push back that it's just a natural consequence of blocking harassment; declining mobile MAU numbers themselves get relatively little direct engagement compared to the culture-war tangents. **Sentiment:** 15% positive · 25% mixed · 60% skeptical **The case for** - Some say the Discover feed improves significantly once you curate follows and use 'less like this' filtering. - Custom/alternative feed algorithms (like third-party 'for you' feeds) are seen as a genuine strength unique to the platform's open architecture. - Several describe finding a normal, enjoyable experience once they block early political noise, following niche interests like cycling, cat pictures, or software. - Some argue the platform is simply more pleasant than X because they can block bots/trolls and avoid a platform run by someone they distrust. **The pushback** - Many feel the platform has become a political echo chamber dominated by one ideological viewpoint, driving away casual or moderate users. - The Discover/algorithmic feed is repeatedly called poor or worse than competitors, surfacing unwanted political or explicit content. - Some argue the app's reliance on Bluesky's own centralized infrastructure makes claims of decentralization misleading and creates fragility if the company falters. - Doubts are raised about whether the MAU methodology (mobile-app only, excluding browser/web users) accurately represents actual usage decline. - A few argue the platform never had mass appeal because its entire pitch was defined in opposition to X/Musk rather than offering something people broadly want. **By community** - hackernews (heated): A long, contentious argument breaks out over whether the platform is an ideological echo chamber versus a reasonable alternative to X, alongside separate threads on feed algorithm quality and MAU measurement methodology. **Hottest debate:** Whether Bluesky is a genuinely useful alternative platform or has degenerated into a one-sided political echo chamber comparable to Truth Social. **Open questions** - Does excluding web/browser users from the MAU figures meaningfully understate actual active usage? - Would Bluesky's AT Protocol infrastructure actually survive in a decentralized way if the company itself shut down? - Is the observed decline driven more by political homogeneity, algorithm quality, or general social-media fatigue? **Highlights** > Bluesky's feed algorithm (the "Discover" tab) is the worst I've ever seen. Hands down. I can't imagine anyone enjoying it unless they're 1) super into the US politics/domestic issues AND 2) politically aligned with the main user base of Bluesky. The funniest part is that there is a better algorithm. It's right here: https://bsky.app/profile/spacecowboy17.bsky.social/feed/for-... But somehow the devs of Bluesky never thought of making it the default tab. They should be making a better Twitter but what they're actually building is just Truth Social for the left. > — [raincole on hackernews · 8 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49264276) > I notice that the stat the article repeatedly quotes is MAU for usage of the mobile app, but one of the things I love about Bluesky is that you don’t need to use a mobile app to have a good UX. I use the mobile browser to access it, so I’m not in that MAU number. Perhaps bsky has a larger number of active users that don’t use the app? > — [hamburglar on hackernews · 9 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49271219) > The distinction is that Mastodon doesn't have to grow, and Bluesky does. There's an extent to which Bluesky is viable because its venture-funded owner pays for the infrastructure it operates on (Mastodon communities generally have to stand on their own two feet). If there's no path for Bluesky to grow into a viable business on its current financial runway, the funding for the infrastructure will end. > — [tptacek on hackernews · 3 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49264118) > Bluesky and Threads both have a fundamental issue in that their entire pitch is "We are like Twitter, but we are not run by Elon Musk, a Republican." Which only energizes the most radical, fringe, terminally online, who happen to be the ones that were most disliked on regular Twitter in the first place. When you whole pitch has zero appeal to 95% of people, its dead. > — [ecshafer on hackernews · 6 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49264323) > I don't know what you're seeing in those stats. Bluesky has been shedding users since the inauguration. Mastodon is virtually a hobby project consisting of private servers that could run indefinitely as long as somebody finds it useful for communication in their community. Neither have any shot of being a twitter replacement. Bluesky has a culture problem and a dishonesty about being p2p problem, and mastodon is too slow/heavy and has a mod problem that is intolerable without a better story about user mobility between servers. Twitter may just die by itself if somehow a better way for people to publicize their work comes into existence, but all traditional means have been rolled up into big opinionated gatekeeping conglomerates who simply ignore things that compete with any of their interests or threaten any of their advertisers or owners. But even if twitter dies, people aren't moving to bluesky or mastodon. > — [pessimizer on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49272837) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49263461) · 73 points · 360 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Bluesky launches group chats and pivots to communities as growth stalls at 44.8 million users](https://daily.dev/posts/bluesky-launches-group-chats-and-pivots-to-communities-as-growth-stalls-at-44-8-million-users-ic7zf0mlh) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Bluesky teases 2026 roadmap: a better Discover feed, real-time features and more](https://daily.dev/posts/bluesky-teases-2026-roadmap-a-better-discover-feed-real-time-features-and-more-3u8c5691x) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Bluesky launches group chats, as company shifts focus to community features](https://daily.dev/posts/bluesky-launches-group-chats-as-company-shifts-focus-to-community-features-faqukrrrd) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#social-media](https://daily.dev/tags/social-media) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/bluesky-s-active-user-base-is-shrinking-as-its-focus-expands-beyond-the-app-lsydq1hj8) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Bluesky’s active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/bluesky-s-active-user-base-is-shrinking-as-its-focus-expands-beyond-the-app-lsydq1hj8","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/bluesky-s-active-user-base-is-shrinking-as-its-focus-expands-beyond-the-app-lsydq1hj8"},"datePublished":"2026-08-11T17:48:14.158Z","dateModified":"2026-08-12T22:20:54.257Z","description":"Bluesky's mobile app has lost over half its monthly active users since its late-2024 post-election peak, with June 2026 showing 10.4 million monthly active...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/115c170ee3c18f3527399e5a8579dc64?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/115c170ee3c18f3527399e5a8579dc64?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"TechCrunch","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TechCrunch","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tc","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/bluesky-s-active-user-base-is-shrinking-as-its-focus-expands-beyond-the-app-lsydq1hj8","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"social-media","timeRequired":"PT3M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TechCrunch","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Bluesky’s active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/bluesky-s-active-user-base-is-shrinking-as-its-focus-expands-beyond-the-app-lsydq1hj8#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How many monthly active users does Bluesky have in 2026?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Bluesky had 10.4 million monthly active users worldwide on mobile in June 2026, down 27.2% year-over-year, per Similarweb data. 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