The social network Bluesky has been growing at a rapid rate ever since the US presidential election concluded. And now it shows no signs of anything but continued expansion. Bluesky is currently No. 1 on the free app section of the US iPhone App Store,

For better or worse, there are currently two major options for X-pats looking to cultivate a Classic Twitter experience: Threads and Bluesky. If X has become microblogging’s past, one of these two just may be its future—the proverbial marketplace of ideas where posts go viral and people find community,

The new user count just kept accelerating from there. According to the latest stats, the X alternative has shot up to more than 19 million users, up from 9 million in early September and 12 million around mid-October. You can watch the numbers continue to climb in real time here.

Bluesky and Facebook may share the same industry, but their origins could hardly be more different. Facebook, launched by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, began rather humbly as a networking site for college students but evolved over the next decade into the global phenomenon we know today.