Mastodon users are rising again as Twitter destroys its brand by renaming itself X

Mastodon’s usage is rising as Twitter adopts Elon Musk’s “X” logo. According to a new post from Mastodon founder and CEO Eugen Rochko, the number of monthly active users for his Twitter alternative has steadily increased over the past couple of months to 2.1 million, “not far off from our last peak.”

After Elon Musk took over Twitter, Mastodon’s monthly active users peaked at 2.5 million in October and November. The founder said Mastodon used to have 300,000 monthly active users.

Twitter’s moves—or missteps—seem to affect Mastodon’s growth. After Twitter’s acquisition, longtime users rebelled against Musk’s changes to their favorite microblogging site, ranging from widespread layoffs to erratic moves affecting Twitter’s platform, policy, and product strategies, including a botched relaunch of Twitter Blue, which devalued verification by opening it up to anyone with a credit card to pay for it. As Twitter recently admitted to having a Verified spammer problem and changed Twitter DMs, that decision is still hurting Twitter.

After Musk’s takeover, some Twitter users tried Mastodon, but not all stuck with it, and Mastodon’s monthly active users dropped from 2.5 million to 1.7 million as of this month. Bluesky, T2, Spill, Post, and others may have attracted other Twitter users. Some may have quit Twitter or posted less, reducing Twitter traffic.

Mastodon may be benefiting again from Musk’s Twitter missteps or from renewed interest in ActivityPub, the decentralized social networking protocol that powers Mastodon and other apps. Instagram Threads, a Twitter competitor launched by Meta, has integrated with ActivityPub, which may have raised awareness of Mastodon and decentralized social networking.

Twitter users may be frustrated by Musk’s recent decision to rate limit tweets, which effectively prevents them from viewing content on the platform, now known as X. Musk said Twitter needed to change rate limits due to a bot and spam surge. Most social networks rate limit for the same reason, but they don’t limit end users, preventing them from viewing the site’s content (and ads).

This may also explain Mastodon’s renewed active user growth.

Or maybe it’s a combination of both of these things and more, including the momentum created by polished third-party Mastodon clients that make using the social network easier and more fun. That includes Tapbots’ Mastodon client Ivory, TweetDeck-inspired Woolly, and Mammoth, a Mastodon client from Aviary’s developer, which is now led by a new developer after Mozilla’s investment.

Ice Cubes, Radiant, and Mastodon’s official mobile app were updated earlier this month to address pain points and add customization options. Mastodon launched with 1.4 million monthly active users, and Rochko noted that posting activity tripled over the weekend, likely due to Twitter’s new viewable tweet limits.

WordPress, Medium, and Flipboard have all integrated Mastodon into their social reading apps, launched servers, and are working to integrate with ActivityPub.