Bluesky is the hot new internet hangout for the people who got a little tired of all the horrible stuff that’s been happening on Twitter/X over the past couple of years. And now it could end up forming the basis of a new Instagram competitor, for anybody that isn’t happy about Mark Zuckerberg and Meta’s sudden pivot to more right-wing politics.
Because Bluesky is built on an open protocol, it means just about anyone can create their own apps using the Bluesky social graph. And developer Sebastian Vogelsang is using that to build an app called Flashes — which will operate in a similar fashion to Instagram.
Flashes is actually just Bluesky with all the text-only posts filtered out. So anything that’s posted to the social network with an image or video will show up here. Similarly, anything you post on Flashes will also appear on Bluesky itself, with the option to share up to four pictures or 1 minute of video. This also means that Flashes will support Bluesky’s direct messaging and comment systems, feeding back into Bluesky proper.
Speaking to TechCrunch, Vogelsang says that Flashes is not meant to be an Instagram clone — and won’t offer anything like the same number of features. That’s no real surprise considering it’s basically just another take on Bluesky and will be limited to whatever features are available there.
Vogelsang has been able to produce Flashes pretty quickly, thanks to having built much of the code for his earlier third-party Bluesky client — called Skeets. This client offers more personalization, extra accessibility features and iPad optimization than Bluesky, and the intention is to bring these to Flashes as well.
There are plenty of reasons why you’d want to avoid or delete Instagram right now. It could be the recent controversial moderation decisions by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the fact that Instagram’s algorithm is really grinding your gears, or the quality (and quantity) of ads you’re seeing in your feed. An alternative could be what you’re looking for, especially if it cuts out all the fluff Instagram has added over the years.
It’s hoped that Flashes will be made available to the public “in a matter of weeks,” and it’s hoped that an open Testflight beta will be available sometime next week. We don’t have any more specific information about the app’s launch yet, but you can follow the Flashes Bluesky account for more updates.
More from Tom's Guide
