The AT Protocol Makes Bluesky the Easiest Social Network to Build Tools For

Bluesky grew from 10M to 41M users in 2025 (+302%). And its AT Protocol makes it the most developer-friendly social platform.

Why Developers Should Care

• Free public API at public.api.bsky.app
• No API key for reading public data
• No rate limits on public reads
• Rich data model — posts, facets, embeds, labels

Compare that to Twitter/X: $42,000/year for basic API access.

Get Any Profile (One API Call)

const profile = await fetch(
  "https://public.api.bsky.app/xrpc/app.bsky.actor.getProfile?actor=bsky.app"
).then(r => r.json());

console.log(profile.followersCount); // 32,420,172

Get Posts with Engagement

const feed = await fetch(
  `https://public.api.bsky.app/xrpc/app.bsky.feed.getAuthorFeed?actor=${did}&limit=50`
).then(r => r.json());

Returns: text, likes, reposts, replies, quotes, hashtags, mentions, media.

What You Can Build

• Brand monitoring dashboards
• Sentiment analysis tools
• Influencer analytics
• Content calendars
• Academic research tools

I built 3 Bluesky tools on Apify: Scraper, Feed Monitor, Hashtag Tracker. All free — search knotless_cadence.