How Many Users Does Bluesky Have? 22+ Bluesky Stats and Facts

Dave Ver Meer

Dave Ver Meer · Updated: June 3, 2023

Mobile device showing a social feed, surrounded by illustrations of charts and 3D blocks

Bluesky, a front-runner in the flock of social platforms seen as alternatives to Twitter, has seen a huge surge in interest over the past months.

In fact, Bluesky currently has over 100,000 users, and the waitlist has ballooned to 1.9 million people.

In this article, we’ll explore all the latest statistics and facts you’d want to know about, including the number of users, downloads, and traffic.

Contents

Top Bluesky statistics

  • Bluesky currently has over 100,000 users, and over 1.9 million people are on the waitlist to join.

  • Bluesky's app was downloaded 628,000 times in April, marking a 606% increase from March.

  • Visitor numbers to Bluesky’s website skyrocketed from 293,900 in March to 2 million in April. That's a 581% increase.

  • As of early May, the Bluesky app was ranked #9 in the social networking category on the Apple App Store, a significant jump from being ranked at #170 in mid-April.

  • Late in April, Bluesky had a spike in new users that doubled its user base.

  • The largest age group of visitors to Bluesky's website is 25-34 year olds.

Sources: BGR, The New Yorker, CNBC, Similarweb1, Similarweb2, Ars Technica

How many users does Bluesky have?

According to the latest data available, Bluesky currently has over 100,000 users and over 1.9 million people on its waitlist. There’s also pent-up demand and interest shown by the fact that the app was downloaded 628,000 times in April.

Group of user icons to represent the following stats. Bluesky has over 100,000 users on the app and 1.9 million people on its waitlist

Since the launch of its beta in 2022, Bluesky has grown its user base slowly, giving them access to the beta in waves.

Overview

Headquarters Seattle, Washington
Founders Jack Dorsey
Owned by Bluesky PBLLC (Not owned by Twitter, though formerly incubated within)
Leadership Jack Dorsey (Founder), Jay Graber (CEO)
Funding Twitter ($13 million), Jack Dorsey (Series A)
Released Beta in Mid-2022, currently invite-only
Number of users 100,000+ beta users
Technology AT Protocol (decentralized)

Bluesky traffic stats

According to Similarweb, blueskyweb.xyz was visited 2 million times in April. That’s a huge 581% increase from the prior 293,900 visits in March.

Each visitor views an average 2.01 pages and spends an average of 1 minute and 6 seconds on the site.

About 6 in 10 visits (61.49%) are from organic search. The second biggest traffic contributor is from direct (14.86%).

Here’s a breakdown of the top marketing channels that drive traffic to Bluesky.

Rank Marketing Channel Traffic Share
1 Organic Search 61.49%
2 Direct 14.86%
3 Referrals 11.82%
4 Social 11.55%
5 Mail 0.28%
6 Paid Search and Display 0%

Source: Similarweb

Bluesky visitor stats

The US was the largest contributor to Bluesky’s website traffic in April, clocking in at 42.07%. In other words, around 4 in 10 visits are from the US.

Graph bar chart showing the portion of visitors are from the US

Turkey comes in second place with 7.02%, followed by Brazil (6.04%).

Here’s a breakdown of Bluesky visitors by region:

Rank Country Traffic
1 US 42.07%
2 Turkey 7.02%
3 Brazil 6.04%
4 Canada 3.88%
5 India 3.71%
- Others 37.28%

Source: Similarweb

Bluesky demographic stats

The makeup of visitors to Bluesky’s website is 29.67% female and 70.33% male. The largest age group is 25-34 year olds (34.17%), followed by 18-24 year olds (23.22%).

Combined, 18-44 year olds represent around three-quarters (76.35%) of the traffic.

Donut chart showing breakdown of visitors by gender. Bar chart showing percentage of visitors by age range.

Source: Similarweb

Bluesky facts

  • Big names such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Chrissy Teigen, Twitter comedian Dril, and prominent journalists have joined, driving a surge in new interest

  • Bluesky is built on the AT Protocol, an open-source technology that allows users to move between hosts without losing their data and identity.

  • Invite codes for Bluesky are in such high demand that they've been showing up on eBay, with completed auctions showing them listed at prices between $200 and $395.

  • Bluesky recently launched their Android app, which has ranked high up in Google Play download charts for the US, UK, and Japan.

  • Posts on Bluesky are best known as "skeets" (a combo of "sky" and "tweet"), even though company leaders have pleaded with users to call them something else.

  • Bluesky announced that they won’t be allowing heads of state to take part in the beta test.

  • Bluesky features domains as handles as an added trust signal. For example, the president of the US could have the handle, “@potus.whitehouse.gov”.

  • According to Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky, the company's vision is to have a "marketplace of algorithms" where users can tweak and select the types of content that show up in their feed. Currently in the beta app, there's just one feed called "What's Hot."

  • Flipboard, a social magazine app, has become the first tech company to integrate with Bluesky by allowing its users to browse posts directly from Bluesky.

  • Bluesky recently released a “custom feeds” feature, which lets users choose what algorithms are used to pull in posts.

Sources: Vox, Fast Company, Bloomberg, Fortune, Bluesky, TechCrunch, Engadget

What is Bluesky?

Bluesky is a decentralized, social network that is considered a front-runner as an alternative to Twitter. It lets you post 300-character posts and replies. You can also repost and share photos. According to the CEO, Jay Graber, it's “a very simple microblogging format to show how Twitter could have been built” using its open protocol.

You can also search for people, mute, and block accounts. As far as posts go, you can reply, repost, and like them.

One notable, unique feature is the ability to claim a more authoritative and trustworthy handle using a domain you already own. So if you own “yourdomain.com”, you could go through a verification process and have the handle “@yourdomain.com”.

How do I get invited to Bluesky?

To get Bluesky, you need to download the app and use an invite code to join. You can get an invite code by signing up for the waitlist or seeing if you know anyone already on Bluesky that has one to spare. Keep in mind that the waitlist already has over 1.9 million people on it.

Bluesky waitlist sign-up form with photo of mobile device next to it.

Who owns Bluesky?

Bluesky is owned by Bluesky PBLLC (Public Benefit LLC), which was formed in late 2021. Bluesky split off from Twitter in early 2022. Around that time, Twitter also invested $13 million in Bluesky. Some confusion about the ownership comes from the fact that Bluesky started out as part of Twitter.

In a recent Tweet, Jay Graber (CEO) went out of his way to clarify the ownership status, by stating, “I think it's worth re-iterating here that Jack is on our board but Jack does not own us.” He went on further to say, “Twitter does not own us.”

Who started Bluesky?

Bluesky was started as a project by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey to realize his vision of an open, decentralized platform. One where users would have the choice to take their profile and social graph to move to another platform. It later split off into its own company in early 2022, and its current CEO is Jay Graber.

Why has Bluesky become popular?

Since Elon Musk bought Twitter, he’s made a series of changes aimed at removing restrictions around speech and having to pay for verification, which have prompted users to leave and seek out alternatives. Bluesky users have described it as a refreshing change, with fewer people who are mean and more that have fun.

Bluesky recently doubled the number of users who have access and high-profile figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Chrissy Teigen, and James Gunn have joined the platform.

Is Bluesky open-source?

Bluesky uses the AT Protocol, an open-source technology pioneered by Bluesky that allows users to move between hosts without losing their data and identity. Recently, Bluesky's app codebase was made open-source so that others can improve and build on top of it.

When will Bluesky launch?

A specific date hasn't been announced yet, but the app has been in beta testing since mid-2022 with a relatively small group of users. Reviews of the app have described it as being a fun and refreshing experience, though its features are still "bare-bones" at the moment.

Wrapping up

Waves of users have been jumping ship from Twitter since it was acquired by Musk, and that trend is only continuing to escalate so far.

If Twitter doesn’t fix its self-sabotaging behavior, it’ll continue to leave the door open for competitors.

Time will tell if Bluesky can capitalize on the opportunity and continue to build a thriving, positive social community in the long run.