head to head · open source
Bluesky vs misskey
Bluesky has 18,364 GitHub stars, 2,872 forks, 2,400 open issues and last shipped yesterday. misskey has 11,366 stars, 1,640 forks, 2,535 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bluesky leads on adoption by 62% (18,364 vs 11,366 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%. Bluesky 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 | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 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 Social App Welcome friends! This is the codebase for the Bluesky Social app. Get the app itself: Web: bsky.app iOS: App Store Android: Play Store Development Resources This is a React Native application, written in the TypeScript programming language. It builds on the atproto TypeScript packages (like @atproto/api ), which are also open source, but in a different git repository. There is a small amount of Go language source code (in ./bskyweb/ ), for a web service that returns the React Native Web application. The Build Instructions are a good place to get started with the app itself. The Authenticated…
read the full Bluesky overview →
About misskey
🌎 Misskey is an open source, federated social media platform that's free forever! 🚀 Learn more Thanks Thanks to Sentry for providing the error tracking platform that helps us catch unexpected errors. Thanks to Chromatic for providing the visual testing platform that helps us review UI changes and catch visual regressions. Thanks to Codecov for providing the code coverage platform that helps us improve our test coverage. Thanks to Crowdin for providing the localization platform that helps us translate Misskey into many languages. Thanks to Docker for providing the container platform that helps us run Misskey in…
read the full misskey overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bluesky or misskey more popular?
Bluesky has 18,364 GitHub stars and misskey has 11,366. 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 (18,364 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose misskey if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.