Bluesky is continuing to blow up. The Twitter-like service and alternative to Elon Musk's X, has now surpassed 16 million users after seeing rapid growth

The main owner of Bluesky helped create a social media platform that discourages bots and hate speech and lets users curate their feed as they wish.

Bluesky appeared to crash on Thursday amid a surge in users as they apparently fled Elon Musk's X / Twitter. A status page for the Twitter alternative said some systems were down as of about 5:15 p.m.

While other platforms, including Meta's Threads, had been seen as the "heir apparent" to the popular microblog, Bluesky could have a serious advantage.

As of this writing, Bluesky sits atop the Apple App Store’s list of free apps. CNBC reported earlier this week that the rival enrolled at least 1.25 million new users in the days since the presidential election,