Bluesky is planning to introduce “communities” — smaller, topic-focused spaces within the platform — sometime in 2026, according to head of product Alex Benzer.
Benzer outlined the feature in a thread, describing communities as places where users can “go deeper and hang out with people who care about the same stuff.” The feature will be built on the AT Protocol, the decentralized infrastructure that underpins Bluesky, and will be part of what Benzer calls the “Atmosphere” — a shorthand for the AT Protocol ecosystem. Benzer described it as “a new structure for everyone.”
According to Benzer, users will be able to create communities, join them, post in them, and receive updates. Each community will have a handle that “doubles as a URL,” leading to a custom homepage. Builders will also have the option to host a fully custom experience at that URL. Communities will support three privacy levels — public, invite-only, and private — and each will have its own dedicated feed.
Benzer emphasized that communities will also exist on the open web, allowing for customization and additional features through other apps and tools built on the AT Protocol. “The core features on Bluesky stay simple,” Benzer said. “The magic comes from communities also existing on the open web.”
The announcement follows comments from Bluesky COO Rose Wang, who said last week that the company wanted to move away from being a “public square” and that it was “very inspired by companies like Reddit.” Meta’s Threads is currently testing a similar communities feature, while X announced in April 2026 that it would be shutting down its own communities feature.
Source: The Verge