head to head · open source
Bluesky vs social
Bluesky has 18,379 GitHub stars, 2,876 forks, 2,400 open issues and last shipped yesterday. social has 11 stars, 0 forks, 24 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Bluesky leads on adoption by 166,982% (18,379 vs 11 stars). Bluesky is written in TypeScript under MIT; social is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0. Bluesky has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, social 0%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Bluesky | social | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 11 |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-06 | 2026-11-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 0 |
| 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 social if
- You want the social feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and social 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 social
Nextcloud Social Your Nextcloud is a Fediverse server. Post, follow and reply across Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, GoToSocial and Akkoma — from the same place your files, calendar and chat already live. No new account. No new app. No algorithm. No advertising. Nextcloud Social gives every user on your server a real Fediverse identity — @you@your.cloud — that anyone on Mastodon can follow, mention and reply to. What you write leaves your server signed, and lands in their timeline. What they write comes back into yours. Nobody else holds it, nobody sells it, and nobody reorders it. It is a partial implementation…
read the full social overview →
More in Community & Social
Related comparisons
More Social Networking projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Social Networking field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Bluesky or social more popular?
Bluesky has 18,379 GitHub stars and social has 11. Bluesky has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bluesky and social free?
Both are open source. Bluesky is licensed under MIT and social under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bluesky and social?
Bluesky is written in TypeScript and social in PHP. 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 social?
Choose Bluesky if you want the larger community (18,379 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose social if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.