Bluesky Is Getting Its Own Instagram Alternative Called Flashes

There is a lot of change in the air of the social media world as TikTok prepares to go dark, Mark Zuckerberg loosens content restrictions on Meta apps, and Elon Musk continues to toy with the X algorithm to suit his personal preferences.

Thankfully, despite the fickle nature of most app users, Bluesky seems to have managed to break through and become a really promising alternative. And thanks to the fundamental nature of its open protocol, anyone can build their own apps that piggyback off the Bluesky social graph.

Case in point, a developer named Sebastian Vogelsang is building an app that will essentially be a new version of Instagram on top of Bluesky’s AT Protocol. Because it uses the Bluesky social graph, posts added to Flashes will also appear on the main Bluesky client, and vice-versa—photos posted to Bluesky will show up on Flashes. The app is just filtering out text-based posts and showing only ones with photos or videos. Through the app, users can share photo slideshows with up to four pictures, or videos one minute in length.

Vogelsang says that Flashes is not intended to be a complete rip of Instagram and will not receive many features Instagram has. That makes sense, as the app is just a reskin of the Bluesky app. Many people have lamented that they yearn for the days when Instagram was simple, not filled with AI-generated content or weird recommendations. Flashes could potentially help fill that hole.

Bluesky got a major boost from Elon Musk’s acquisition of X, then Twitter, though its growth has slowed in recent months. It is estimated that Bluesky has roughly 27 million active users. That is nowhere near the size of apps like Instagram and TikTok, and it remains quite smaller than X as well. Reaching critical mass for any social network is incredibly tough, and X is only seeing its influence grow as Musk begins serving as President-elect Trump’s right-hand man.

But Bluesky has a promising future if it is able to keep growing at a moderate pace. The company raised a $15 million investment round back in October with plans to launch paid subscriptions so the company is not reliant on advertising or collecting user data. Most major social networks these days have plugged up their APIs and do not allow third-party clients because they make it difficult to display and target advertising, and the data itself is used to train AI.

Vogelsang told TechCrunch that Flashes should launch in the coming weeks. Anyone interested in checking it out can follow the Flashes account on Bluesky for updates.