The multitude of alternatives to X, formerly known as Twitter, have struggled to gain traction to compete even as X seems to be struggling to stay afloat in the year since Elon Musk’s takeover.
Following Musk’s purchase of the platform, many users attempted an exodus and sought a platform worthy of their attention. Some established networks, such as Mastodon, saw increased downloads, while others launched alternatives, such as Instagram’s Threads. While the rival platforms regularly see surges when X makes design decisions that people dislike, they’ve yet to draw away the hundreds of millions of monthly users that X still has.
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Here’s how X’s clone attempts look a year after Musk acquired the company.
Mastodon
Mastodon, a decentralized social network that allows users to make their own private social networks, was presented by many Musk critics as an alternative to Twitter in the initial months of Musk’s takeover. That push caused its user base to surge to about 2.5 million in December 2022. However, that number dropped to 1.4 million in January 2023.
The platform saw its user base surge to 2.1 million users in July after Musk renamed Twitter “X,” according to Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko.
BlueSky
Bluesky is a project founded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in 2019. Initially founded as a side project at Twitter, Dorsey spun it into its own company to create a “decentralized” platform that requires an invite code to get access.
The platform saw a surge of new users in September after Musk announced plans to charge every user an annual $1 fee for the ability to post or repost. The platform has moved from fewer than 50,000 registered users in May to over 1.7 million users on Oct. 25, according to BlueSky Stats.
Instagram Threads
When Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that he was launching Instagram Threads, expectations rose that the platform might present a serious challenge to X. Not only did Meta have the funds to make the popular social platform, but it also had experience with the technology. Over 100 million users signed up for Threads in the first five days of the new platform’s launch, according to the company.
The users did not stick around for long, however. Daily active users for Threads on the Android app dropped from 49 million on July 7 to 12.6 million on July 23, suggesting that most users did not stick around and stay active on Threads.
Meta claims that user numbers have improved on the platform since. Threads has “just under” 100 million monthly users, Zuckerberg said during his company’s quarterly earnings call. However, daily and monthly active users are different metrics, making it challenging to ascertain accuracy.
State of X
X’s metrics have declined since Musk’s takeover. Daily active mobile users fell 15% year-over-year, according to the analytics firm SensorTower. App downloads also dropped 38% between October 2022 and September 2023. User churn, or the number of people who stop using the app, went up 30% year-over-year as of September 2023.
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The majority of the platform’s top advertisers have also left X, according to a report released by the marketing consultancy Ebiquity.
Musk has attempted to improve the state of the app, including by hiring former NBCUniversal CEO Linda Yaccarino to take over as CEO and attempt to convince advertisers to return. He is also trying to rebrand X as an “everything app,” adding new functions such as video chats and encrypted DMs.
