Bluesky Introduces Group Chats as Platform Expands Community-Focused Features

Social networking platform Bluesky on Thursday rolled out support for group chats, adding another feature aimed at helping the service compete more effectively with its larger rival, X.

While Elon Musk-owned X has recently increased its focus on messaging through the launch of the standalone XChat application, Bluesky is only now introducing a way for users to communicate privately in groups within its platform.

The feature arrives with the latest version of the app, v1.124. It represents one of the first major steps in Bluesky’s broader plan to place greater emphasis on communities rather than operating solely as a social network centred on public posts and broad audience reach.

The strategic shift comes at a time when Bluesky’s growth has begun to moderate. The platform currently has around 44.8 million registered users, a figure that remains significantly smaller than X’s reported 600 million monthly active users. If Bluesky is unable to match the scale of competitors such as X or Meta’s Threads, the company may need to differentiate itself by offering alternative forms of social interaction and community engagement.

The startup first introduced direct messaging in 2024 but only recently began supporting encrypted conversations via an integration with the third-party messaging service Germ. With the latest update, Bluesky is now adding native support for group chats that can include up to 50 participants, according to the company’s announcement.

Although that limit is considerably smaller than X’s support for groups of up to 1,000 members, Bluesky views it as an initial step and has indicated that the cap could be increased over time.

According to the company, creators of group chats will have control over how their conversations are managed and can determine who is allowed to join and participate. They can also generate invitation links that can be shared across the internet, including within Bluesky posts where the links will appear as embedded cards.

Users participating in chats will also control who can invite them to conversations. Available options include allowing invitations from everyone, only from people they follow, or from no one at all. By default, the setting will be limited to people users follow unless they have selected a different preference for direct messages.

At launch, media sharing within group chats will not be available. Bluesky explained that support for sharing media will require additional moderation and safety systems before it can be introduced.

In a series of recent posts, Bluesky Head of Product Alex Benzer discussed the company’s plans to make the platform increasingly focused on communities.

“Today, Bluesky is one big space. Communities will be smaller spaces inside that where you can go deeper and hang out with people who care about the same stuff,” Benzer wrote. He also noted that the company intends to develop community-focused features on the underlying AT Protocol with support from developers across the broader ecosystem.

“On Bluesky, you’ll be able to create communities, join them, post in them, and get updates,” Benzer added.

The timing of the announcement is particularly noteworthy because X revealed in April that it would discontinue its Communities feature, citing low adoption and excessive spam. Bluesky appears to be positioning itself to serve users seeking greater control and ownership over their online communities by expanding in the area where X has stepped back.

For example, Benzer explained that communities on Bluesky will receive their own dedicated handles that also function as URLs, such as community-name.bsky.social or community-name.bsky.space. Communities will also be able to operate as public, invite-only, or private spaces, offering options similar to those available on Facebook Groups and Reddit.

With its planned community features, Bluesky is effectively betting that users are interested in alternatives to platforms controlled by major technology companies and may be drawn to more open technologies that offer greater control over the user experience and account management.

Alongside the launch of group chats, the latest Bluesky update also introduces a new profile-sharing feature that allows users to generate personalised QR codes, similar to functionality already available on several other social networking platforms.