head to head · open source
Bluesky vs misskey
Bluesky has 18,295 GitHub stars, 2,837 forks, 2,400 open issues and last shipped yesterday. misskey has 11,327 stars, 1,616 forks, 2,535 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bluesky leads on adoption by 62% (18,295 vs 11,327 stars). Bluesky is written in TypeScript under MIT; misskey is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Bluesky has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, misskey 14%. misskey was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Bluesky | misskey | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 11K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.8K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Bluesky if
- You weight community size — 18K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick misskey if
- You want the misskey feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and misskey fits your workflow better
About Bluesky
Bluesky is the open source social application codebase for the Bluesky Social app. It lives in the AT Protocol ecosystem, also called atproto, and it is written in TypeScript as a React Native application. The project provides client code for Web, iOS, and Android, and it builds on open source atproto packages such as @atproto/api, which live in a separate repository.
read the full Bluesky overview →
About misskey
Misskey is an open source, federated social media platform that is free forever, released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It is written in TypeScript and lives in the fediverse, the network of interoperable social platforms built on the ActivityPub protocol. The project has been developed for roughly ten years and carries the topics activitypub, federation, fediverse, microblog, and misskey. Its homepage and documentation hub is hosted at misskey hub.net.
read the full misskey overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bluesky or misskey more popular?
Bluesky has 18,295 GitHub stars and misskey has 11,327. Bluesky has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bluesky and misskey free?
Both are open source. Bluesky is licensed under MIT and misskey under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bluesky and misskey?
Bluesky is written in TypeScript and misskey in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Bluesky or misskey?
Choose Bluesky if you want the larger community (18,295 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose misskey if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.