TechCrunch Desktop Logo TechCrunch Mobile Logo LatestStartupsVentureAppleSecurityAIAppsDisrupt 2026 EventsPodcastsNewsletters SearchSubmit Site Search Toggle Mega Menu Toggle Topics Latest AI Amazon Apps Biotech & Health Climate Cloud Computing Commerce Crypto Enterprise EVs Fintech Fundraising Gadgets Gaming Google Government & Policy Hardware Instagram Layoffs Media & Entertainment Meta Microsoft Privacy Robotics Security Social Space Startups TikTok Transportation Venture More from TechCrunch Staff Events Startup Battlefield StrictlyVC Newsletters Podcasts Videos Partner Content TechCrunch Brand Studio Contact Us Image Credits:Acorn from Blacksky Social As X shuts down Communities, Acorn debuts an alternative that puts creators in control Sarah Perez 8:33 AM PDT · May 4, 2026 A new project called Acorn has launched a way for organizations and creators to build their own online communities as an alternative to centralized social media platforms like Instagram, X, and Threads. It uses the same underlying technology that powers the decentralized social media app Bluesky, allowing communities to build their own homepages, create starter packs for new members, and customize feeds and moderation tools. Acorn’s platform hails from Blacksky, a company building its own decentralized social media toolkit around the AT Protocol.
The AT protocol was developed by Bluesky’s team and is used by it and other open social apps, like Flashes, Spark, Skylight, Surf, Streamplace, Leaflet, and more. Image Credits:Acorn from Blacksky To date, Blacksky’s focus has been on building tools to provide a safer online space for members of the Black Twitter community to move to — an effort that has so far included forking Bluesky, building custom moderation services, creating its own implementation of the AT Protocol, and other technical feats. With Acorn, Blacksky is providing access to these same tools to other communities that want to build their own spaces on the open social web.
This could allow organizations and creators to establish communities they control, rather than ceding that control to tech giants, leaving them at the mercy of inscrutable algorithms and ever-changing policies. For instance, X recently announced it was shutting down its own Communities feature, leaving users scrambling to move their groups elsewhere. At launch, Acorn includes a set of tools to help communities onboard new members, customize their feeds, configure and run moderation services, and track community growth through analytics, among other things.
As on Bluesky, where users can create “Starter Packs” with a list of suggested follows for newcomers looking to grow their network, Acorn allows communities to create starter packs of their own. It also provides reputation systems that help communities recognize and manage members, using things like custom badges and awards, along with tools for policing bots and trolls. Image Credits:Acorn from Blacksky Communities can also define the moderation policies that matter most to them, then access custom tools to manage the reporting flow and other actions, like taking down or banning accounts, or removing posts.
Image Credits:Acorn from Blacksky Community creators can build their own feeds focused on topics that matter to their members, and can create different tabs for important items, like announcements, events, or resources, for instance. Image Credits:Acorn from Blacksky As the community grows, built-in analytics help creators track member growth, feed activity, and engagement patterns, so they can understand their overall community health. Image Credits:Acorn from Blacksky Communities can deploy Acorn’s tools on their own domain, and pricing is customized to their needs.
Some communities want to use all the tools, which can even include running their own PDS (Personal Data Server), a part of the AT Protocol’s infrastructure. Others may want just a customized version of Blacksky’s community client build for their needs. The average customer price is roughly $100 to $150 per month, but longer-term, Acorn will move to a tiered SaaS (software-as-a-service) model that will scale with community size and the level of tooling required.
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