The digital chatter fell silent for millions today as Bluesky, the social network touted as the scrappy heir to Twitter’s throne, crashed hard. Users hoping to fire off posts or scroll through their feeds were met with error messages and spinning wheels, leaving the platform’s vibrant community stranded in a virtual ghost town. As of April 29, 2025, the outage is ongoing, with no clear timeline for a fix, according to the company’s official status page.
The trouble kicked off early this morning, when Bluesky’s servers started buckling under what the company called “major networking issues” affecting its Personal Data Server instances. These PDS units, the backbone of Bluesky’s decentralized setup, are supposed to keep the platform humming by letting users control their own data. But today, they became the Achilles’ heel. The company issued a brief statement on its website, admitting the outage was widespread, impacting both the mobile app and desktop versions. No word yet on what sparked the collapse, but the scale suggests a deep-rooted glitch in the system’s architecture.
This isn’t Bluesky’s first stumble. On April 25, a similar outage knocked the platform offline for over an hour, with traffic plummeting as users scrambled to other corners of the internet. The company later pinned that incident on a server failure, promising a full investigation. Today’s crash, though, feels bigger—more users, more frustration, and a longer stretch of radio silence. Bluesky’s team has been tight-lipped beyond their initial acknowledgment, leaving users to refresh their screens in vain.
For a platform that’s been riding a wave of hype since its public launch in 2024, the timing couldn’t be worse. Bluesky has drawn in droves of users with its promise of a less chaotic, user-driven alternative to legacy social media. Its decentralized model, paired with a clean interface, has won over creators, journalists, and everyday folks alike. But outages like this expose the growing pains of a network still finding its footing in a crowded digital landscape.
The fallout is visible across the platform’s user base. Artists who rely on Bluesky to share their work are stuck in limbo. Small businesses banking on the platform’s reach for promotions are losing hours of engagement. Even casual users, drawn to Bluesky’s no-nonsense vibe, are left twiddling their thumbs. The company’s status page, last updated minutes ago, confirms the issue persists, with engineers “actively investigating” but no estimate for when service will resume.
Bluesky’s decentralized design, while innovative, may be part of the problem. Unlike traditional platforms with centralized servers, its reliance on distributed PDS instances means a single point of failure can ripple across the network. The company has touted this setup as a way to empower users, but today, it’s empowering headaches instead. No official reports have confirmed external factors like cyberattacks or infrastructure failures, and Bluesky hasn’t hinted at foul play.
As the outage drags on, the platform’s 20 million-plus users are left waiting. The company’s last major update, a feature rollout in March 2025, added tools for creators, but none of that matters when the site’s down. For now, Bluesky’s team is hunkered down, working to bring the network back online. Until then, the digital town square stays quiet.
The outage began on April 29, 2025. Bluesky’s official status page reports no resolution as of the latest check. The platform has over 20 million registered users. The previous outage occurred on April 25, 2025, lasting approximately one hour.