Bluesky Hit Daily Active User Record When Musk Said X Will Charge All Users

Bluesky’s Android app had more than half a million daily active users on September 18 and 19, and web traffic surged even more

Confirming other reports of an uptick of interest in Bluesky, Similarweb estimates the Bluesky social media app set a new record for daily active users on Monday. Bluesky is one of the leading alternatives to X (Twitter), and on Monday Elon Musk was in the news for saying that X would begin charging all users.

As part of a live-streamed event, Musk said expanding beyond the voluntary $8 per month subscription program introduced last year, adding a lower-priced tier, would help prevent bot activity on the platform. But such a move could also drive away users who have remained active on X but would not be willing to pay even a small amount.

Meanwhile, Bluesky’s web traffic on September 19 blew past the record set following this summer’s Twitter “rate limit” controversy. That’s consistent with reports that Bluesky saw record new account signups on the 19th.

Key takeaways

• On Android, Bluesky had half a million daily active users on September 18, up 20.6% from the day before, according to Similarweb estimates, and more than 583,000 on September 19. We don’t have a comparable daily estimate for iOS but would expect the trend to be similar.
• The Bluesky website, bsky.app, got over more than 1 million daily visitors on September 19 and almost as many on September 20. That’s more than it got on July 1 (811,000) following another controversy for Twitter (before it became X) related to the service imposing a “rate limit” on its most active users. Back then, Bluesky temporarily halted signups, saying the service was being overwhelmed by the influx of new users.
• Threads, which is also positioned as an X alternative, does not seem to have seen a similar surge either in app usage or on the web. As a Meta Platforms Inc. spinoff from Instagram, Threads has many more daily users – 8.3 million on September 18 – but that was roughly the same as the day before. On September 19, the user count dropped slightly to 8.1 million.

Bluesky continues to operate as beta software with invitation-only membership, so the interest in joining – particularly in the wake of news events – does not immediately translate into lots of new users on the platform. The current elevated interest in Bluesky appears to be an echo of the July 1 peak in interest that followed the X/Twitter rate limit news, when the Bluesky website got over 811,000 visitors just as signups were being put on pause.

These trends are based on just a few days worth of data, so it remains to be seen whether engagement with the Bluesky app continues to increase. It has been rising steadily for months, independent of news events like this.

Bluesky hits a half million daily user high on Android

Here is how Bluesky app usage has been increasing day after day, with a 583,000+ daily active user peak on Android on September 19.

A more pronounced surge on the web

The bsky.app website is where potential new users can learn how to sign up for the waiting list and established users can take advantage of the web access to the app. Traffic has tended to surge after each new controversy, causing X / Twitter users to look for an alternative. Previously, the website’s traffic peaked date was on July 1, following the Twitter rate limit kerfuffle.

Threads in comparison

In comparison, Threads had a huge launch, and its connection to Instagram continues to make it look like a contender, but it did not experience a detectable increase in usage following the latest X news.

The Similarweb Insights & Communications team is available to pull additional or updated data on request for the news media (journalists are invited to write to press@similarweb.com). When citing our data, please reference Similarweb as the source and link back to the most relevant blog post or similarweb.com/blog/insights/.

Methodology

Disclaimer: All names, brands, trademarks, and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. The data, reports, and other materials provided or made available by Similarweb consist of or include estimated metrics and digital insights generated by Similarweb using its proprietary algorithms, based on information collected by Similarweb from multiple sources using its advanced data methodologies. Similarweb shall not be responsible for the accuracy of such data, reports, and materials and shall have no liability for any decision by any third party based in whole or in part on such data, reports, and materials.