W for ATProto

A new platform, W, aspires to be European alternative to X.

This has a lot of people annoyed that more silos are being created, rather than choosing open social protocols.

The last thing anyone needs is a new "platform" for microblogging. The whole point is we should be moving beyond silo'd platforms into an open social world. So my response to the launch of "W" as a competing platform to "X" is simply: "but Y, tho?" cybernews.com/tech/europe-...

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— Mike Masnick (@mmasnick.bsky.social) January 20, 2026 at 3:52 PM

But what if I told you that W is planning to launch, powered by ATProto?

We've heard that the initial launch is going to be a fork of the Bluesky social-app (link to open source code on Github) - the main app that the Bluesky team runs and maintains, and that people use on web, iOS, and Android.

By pitching itself as an alternative to X - with potential features around verification and photo ID - this is a "microblogging clone". Great! One more product option that people can use with their ATProto accounts, picking and choosing between app interfaces, moderation, verification, and features.

You can check out the resources page on the ATProto Community forum for a list of other alternate social apps, some of which are simple forks, and some of which are running fully separate infrastructure (Blacksky, with account hosting, moderation, a network index) or a completely different architecture (Red Dwarf, fetching content directly from accounts you follow without a network index).

And of course, all of those are microblog flavours, with Smoke Signal handling events, Leaflet (and Standard Site) handling long form writing, Semble handling bookmarks, or things that don't make you think about open social at all, like Flushes or Recipe Exchange.

EuroSky as Innovation Commons

At last year's ATmosphere conference, we welcomed Free our Feeds, which blossomed into IndieSky, the EuroSky initiative, and now the Modal Foundation, a Dutch-based foundation that is part of the roadmap of Free our Feeds.

And yes, support for the AT Community Fund.

EuroSky is building out commons infrastructure. Account hosting, shared moderation, network infrastructure protection, all on European hardware and software.

From their website:

Eurosky is building a European alternative to Big Tech social media and web services that is focused on innovation, user choice and open standards. Eurosky develops foundational software and services that enable entrepreneurs and startups to launch their products faster, cheaper and ready to scale. 

EuroSky provides a platform for innovation, where developers, communities, regions, and even national governments can start small, and grow big, with a solid, sovereign foundational infrastructure.

This is a W for ATProto

W, planning to be an alternative to X – and to the Bluesky product – could choose to run all of their own infrastructure. Or they could contribute to EuroSky. Or something in between, where they run their own verified account scheme, lean into some shared network protection homed in Europe.

We don't quite have the analogies for this. Was Hotmail mad when Gmail launched? Of course! Corporate competition. But this was a win for email usage and growth of the "email network" overall.

And that's what protocol adoption of open social looks like. Not just co-opetition, but growing a network that supports many approaches to microblogging and beyond, where users can make choices from many options.

This is a W for ATProto.

Anna Zeiter and W - welcome to the ATmosphere, the network of all the apps and account hosts that build the ATProto network together.

We'd love to see you at ATmosphereConf 2026, in Vancouver, Canada this March. We're excited to see more organizations building on ATProto, and look forward to building, growing, and communicating together.