Bluesky’s active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app

Decentralized societal web Bluesky was 1 of the bigger beneficiaries of the exodus from Elon Musk’s X successful November 2024, pursuing the U.S. elections. But now, astir 2 years later, the societal web and would-be X rival is struggling to clasp onto its momentum.

According to information from integer quality supplier Similarweb, Bluesky’s mobile app had 10.4 cardinal monthly progressive users worldwide successful June 2026, down 27.2% year-over-year. In addition, mobile regular progressive users continued to decline, falling 25.6% year-over-year successful July to astir 3 million.

Image Credits:Similarweb

Image Credits:Similarweb

These declines bespeak that adjacent though Bluesky’s app continues to adhd registered accounts, less radical are utilizing its mobile app connected a regular basis. It besides suggests that immoderate of those who joined Bluesky owed to their dissatisfaction with X post-elections haven’t stuck astir long-term.

But the bigger takeaway present is not conscionable that Bluesky’s post-election bump has shrunk. Bluesky’s app has mislaid much than fractional its monthly progressive users from its late-2024 high, which means that its app usage continued to shrink adjacent aft the archetypal post-election surge subsided. (Its quarterly mean was astir 22.1 cardinal monthly progressive users successful the 4th fourth of 2024, Similarweb’s information indicates, and it declined to 10.7 cardinal successful the 2nd 4th of 2026. That’s a diminution of astir 52%.)

Building beyond Bluesky

While Bluesky’s numbers are down, those who stuck astir are committed. Its smaller assemblage remains comparatively active, with a stickiness complaint (the ratio of regular to monthly progressive users) of astir 29% successful June, astir the aforesaid arsenic Threads.

For Bluesky’s caller CEO, Toni Schneider, these numbers whitethorn not beryllium arsenic concerning. The institution is not wholly focused connected making Bluesky (the app) succeed, but connected making it imaginable for the underlying protocol (AT Proto) to powerfulness a increasing fig of societal apps, services, and communities. That’s thing that is present taking place, arsenic projects similar BlackSky and Eurosky are growing, portion immoderate AT Proto apps like the video-focused Skylight person recovered aboriginal traction, too.

In addition, the institution has launched caller products, similar the AI-powered probe instrumentality Attie, and is present moving connected adding enactment for backstage information to Bluesky. The second could make caller involvement successful Bluesky from a antithetic benignant of idiosyncratic — those little funny successful the nationalist square, and much funny successful backstage networking and communities.

Bluesky’s AttieImage Credits:Bluesky (screenshot)

What’s more, Similarweb’s information doesn’t needfully suggest that Bluesky users person returned to X, arsenic immoderate whitethorn person feared.

Instead, the information shows that X’s worldwide monthly progressive users connected mobile were down astir 3% year-over-year successful June, and X’s mobile regular progressive users dropped 7% successful July to 123.7 million. (Of course, X remains a sizable societal web with astir 302 cardinal monthly progressive users connected its app arsenic of June 2026 and a increasing fig of web visits, up 5.3% year-over-year successful July to 4.7 billion.)

If anything, the app to present beryllium acrophobic astir is Threads. It’s unclear whether Threads is benefiting from Bluesky’s falling engagement, oregon if it’s managed to pull a caller acceptable of radical who had ne'er earlier utilized a Twitter-like service.

In immoderate event, the Meta-owned app’s regular progressive users were up 21.3% year-over-year to 147 cardinal successful July 2026, and its website visits were up 112% year-over-year to 471.6 million.

Bluesky’s own nationalist stats indicate the institution present has astir 46 cardinal registered users, but it doesn’t share circumstantial information connected regular oregon monthly progressive usage.