Tech Crunch - Bluesky tops 20M users, narrowing gap with Instagram, Threads

Sarah Perez

8:12 AM PST · November 19, 2024

Bluesky, the social network and X competitor has been benefiting from a surge of departures from the Elon Musk-owned app formerly known as Twitter. Today, Bluesky has hit a major milestone: it's topped 20 million users. What's more, new data indicates the app's rapid growth is seeing it close the gap with another prominent X rival, Instagram Threads, across metrics like daily active users and website visits.

Bluesky's user base is still much smaller than Threads, which recently reported north of 275 million monthly active users. However, if Bluesky's current rate of growth holds up, it could catch up with Threads in time, market intelligence firm Similarweb believes.

Its data indicates that Threads had five times more daily active users than Bluesky ahead of the U.S. elections, but as of November 15, its lead over Bluesky had been reduced to just 1.5x. The Musk-owned app X remains dominant, though, with a daily active user count that's more than 10 times larger than Bluesky at present.

The firm's data also indicates that Bluesky overtook Threads in daily website visits in both the U.S. and the U.K., which signals strong interest from potential new users. Globally, daily website visits on Bluesky haven't yet surpassed Threads, but it's come very close as of mid-November.

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