Bluesky is rolling out group chat functionality within its platform, supporting up to 50 participants. This decentralized social network is shifting its product focus toward smaller-scale community interactions, aiming to enhance platform appeal following a slowdown in user growth.
Group chats are limited to 50 people.
According to Bluesky’s guidelines, the creator of a group chat can manage the chat space and decide who can join. Users can also generate invite links to share on the web or in Bluesky posts.
Compared to X’s group chats, which support up to 1,000 people, Bluesky’s initial rollout has a smaller scale. However, the company says it may increase the participant limit in the future.
Invite permissions can be set individually.
Users participating in group chats can set who can invite them to the chat, with options including everyone, followed users only, or no invitations allowed. By default, the system uses the "followed users only" setting unless the user has previously adjusted their private message permissions otherwise.
Bluesky also noted that media content cannot be sent in group chats yet. The company stated that this feature requires additional security and content moderation systems, and thus has not been enabled.
The platform is transitioning to community features.
Bluesky product lead Alex Benzer recently stated that the platform will focus more on building community features. According to him, users will soon be able to create communities, join communities, post within communities, and receive relevant updates.
This timing has also drawn significant attention. X announced in April this year that it would shut down its Communities feature due to low usage and excessive spam. Bluesky’s move into community products now suggests it is aiming to meet the demand from users seeking greater control and a more stable community experience.