BlueSky may still be the laggard in the race for an alternative to X, but the once Twitter-connected service is gaining momentum. The company said in an update that the app has passed the 15 million user mark after adding more than a million new users last week.

While BlueSky is still significantly smaller than Threads, its biggest rival with 275 million users, there are signs that Threads users are becoming increasingly curious about this new product.

“BlueSky” has been a trending topic on Threads in recent days and in-app search suggestions show there are more than 19,000 posts about “BlueSky.” BlueSky has also attempted to win over Threads users by posting regularly on the Meta-owned service in recent weeks.

This effort appears to be working. In September, Engadget noted, the service had about 9 million users. A month later, it neared 11 million. Its mobile app holds the top spot in Apple’s App Store, followed by Threads and ChatGPT. Its current success seems to have been driven, at least in part, by frustration with Elon Musk and X following the US presidential election.

A recent report from web analytics company SimilarWeb found that “more than 115,000 US web visitors deactivated their accounts” on November 7, “more than any previous day of Elon Musk’s tenure.” The report also mentions that “web traffic and daily active users for BlueSky increased dramatically in the week leading up to the election, and then increased again after election day,” with BlueSky seeing more web traffic than Threads. (Threads’ mobile usage, however, is still “far ahead” of BlueSky.)

“In the US, BlueSky received more web visits than Threads immediately following the election,” the report states. “For context, it’s important to note that both services are app-focused, even though they support a web user interface.”

For its part, BlueSky seems intent on differentiating itself from its larger, billionaire-controlled rivals. The company, which began as an internal project at Twitter before being spun off into an independent entity, has experimented with new features like custom feeds, user-created moderation services and “starter packs” for new users. “You’ve probably grown accustomed to being stuck in a single algorithm controlled by a small group, but that’s not the case anymore,” BlueSky COO Rose Wang shared in a video for new users on Tuesday.

“On BlueSky, there are about 50,000 different feeds… These feeds provide you with a comfortable place to meet people with similar interests. And you can actually make friends again, because you’re no longer tied to a dominant algorithm that promotes either the most polarizing posts or the biggest brands, and that’s BlueSky’s mandate.”

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