head to head · open source
Bluesky vs social
Bluesky has 18,304 GitHub stars, 2,839 forks, 2,400 open issues and last shipped today. social has 503 stars, 59 forks, 24 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bluesky leads on adoption by 3,539% (18,304 vs 503 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 12%. 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 | social | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 503 |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.8K | ⑂ 59 |
| 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 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 social
Nextcloud Social is an AGPL 3.0 Nextcloud app that turns an existing Nextcloud instance into a Fediverse server, giving every user a @[email protected] identity that people on Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, GoToSocial and Akkoma can follow, mention and reply to.
read the full social overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bluesky or social more popular?
Bluesky has 18,304 GitHub stars and social has 503. 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 (18,304 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose social if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.