X Rival Bluesky May Be Growing But Threads is Growing Faster

Bluesky reported a surge in signups in the UK following controversy over X, but app usage numbers favor Threads

Getting people to download and sign up for a new social app is an important milestone of success, but getting them to use it regularly is another matter.

Bluesky, one of the social apps counted among the potential replacements for X (formerly Twitter), reported a surge in signups, including new accounts for members of Parliament, following recent controversy over whether X was being used to encourage recent anti-immigrant riots. “For 5 out of the last 7 days, the UK had the most Bluesky signups of any country,” Bluesky said in a press release. However, actual usage of Bluesky lags far behind that of Threads, the X challenger from Meta’s Instagram business unit.

Although these services also operate on the web, app usage tells the story of their most engaged users.

Key takeaways

• In the UK, Threads has been at about 1.3 million daily active users for the 7 days ended August 11, which is its best daily performance all year, according to Similarweb estimates. These stats are for iOS and Android combined.
• Bluesky was at 67.8K daily active users on August 11, which was a recent peak but not a high-water mark for the UK. The app registered more than 100K daily users in early January, so its recent performance is not all that remarkable.
• Meanwhile, UK daily active users for X were at 6 million on August 11 — far more than Threads or Bluesky, but one of its weakest days all year.
• From June to July, monthly active users were up 8.6% for Threads in the UK and nearly 20% in the US. Bluesky monthly active users were basically unchanged in the UK and were up 1.8% in the US.
• X is still far larger, although its active user base has been up and down over the course of the year. From June to July, monthly active users were up 2.6% in the UK and 3.4% in the US.

By app usage, Threads is much larger than Bluesky and growing faster

Here is what the comparison between Threads and X looks like for the UK …

… and for the US.

In both cases, X maintains a significant lead, despite some ups and downs. That lead is wider in the US than in the UK, however. X is 5.9 times larger than Threads in the US and little more than three times larger in the UK by monthly active users.

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Methodology

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by David F. Carr

David covers social media, digital advertising, and generative AI. With a background in web trends since the 1990s, he’s also the author of "Social Collaboration for Dummies".