head to head · open source
Bluesky vs talkyard
Bluesky has 18,366 GitHub stars, 2,874 forks, 2,400 open issues and last shipped yesterday. talkyard has 1,815 stars, 127 forks, 127 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Bluesky leads on adoption by 912% (18,366 vs 1,815 stars). Bluesky is written in TypeScript under MIT; talkyard is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Bluesky has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, talkyard 7%. 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 | talkyard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-07-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 127 |
| 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 talkyard if
- You want the talkyard 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 talkyard 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 talkyard
Talkyard ============================= Forum software, with chat, and anonymous comments. Thoughtful discussions.  Insightful comments rise to the top. Upvote ideas.  Sort by votes. Question Answers.  Discuss, select an answer. Chat channels.  Pretty basic features. Blog comments.  Listen to your readers. How does it compare with other software?   Find out here . Self Hosting:   See talkyard prod one Demo:   Discussion forum:   Documentation:   (incomplete) Development:   That's this repo! See: docs/developing talkyard.md Features Good…
read the full talkyard overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bluesky or talkyard more popular?
Bluesky has 18,366 GitHub stars and talkyard has 1,815. Bluesky has the larger community by that measure.
Are Bluesky and talkyard free?
Both are open source. Bluesky is licensed under MIT and talkyard under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Bluesky and talkyard?
Bluesky is written in TypeScript and talkyard 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 talkyard?
Choose Bluesky if you want the larger community (18,366 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose talkyard if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.