Custom feeds are the most genuinely novel thing about Bluesky, and a large share of users never touch them. That is a shame, because they solve the exact problem people complain about most: the default feed is not good enough.
This is how to use them properly, and how to build one.
What a Custom Feed Actually Is
On most platforms, the algorithm is the platform. One company decides what you see and you take it.
On Bluesky, feeds are independent services. A feed generator is an external server that, when asked, returns a list of post identifiers. The app renders them. That is the whole architecture – and it means anyone can write one, and users choose which ones to use.
The consequences are more interesting than they sound:
- You can have many algorithms. Not one feed with settings – genuinely different ranking systems, side by side, that you switch between.
- Feeds can be transparent. Many publish their logic. Some are open source. You can know why a post is in front of you.
- Nobody has to ask permission. No API partnership, no approval process. Write a service, register it, people subscribe.
- Bad feeds lose. If a feed gets worse, people unsubscribe. That is a market pressure the single-algorithm model does not have.
Finding Feeds Worth Using
The Feeds tab
The starting point, and better than it used to be. Browse and search by topic. Coverage is uneven – popular feeds surface well, niche ones less so.
Search by your interest
Search a topic directly. Most community feeds name themselves plainly after their subject, so "photography," "linux," or a show's title will find them if they exist.
Check what people you trust are using
Feeds spread socially on Bluesky more than through browse surfaces. If someone whose taste you rely on mentions a feed, that is a strong signal – better than any directory ranking.
Categories worth looking for
| Feed type | What it does |
|---|---|
| Topic feeds | Posts about a subject, usually keyword or hashtag driven |
| Community feeds | Posts from a defined set of accounts – a scene or a region |
| Quality filters | Your follows, but filtered – no reposts, no replies, text only |
| Discovery feeds | Posts from people you do not follow, ranked by engagement |
| Language feeds | A specific language – genuinely important given how international Bluesky is |
| Event feeds | Temporary feeds for tournaments, conferences, elections |
Pin the Ones You Use
Subscribing adds a feed to your list. Pinning puts it in your top tab bar next to Following and Discover, which is the difference between a feed you use and one you forget exists.
A good setup is Following plus three to five pinned feeds. More than that and you stop checking any of them.
In Skyscraper for iOS you can pin both feeds and hashtags to your navigation, which covers most of what people actually want from the app day to day.
Why Feeds Matter More in 2026
Two reasons this is a better time to invest in feeds than a year ago.
The platform is prioritizing them. Bluesky's 2026 roadmap explicitly committed to giving custom feeds more visibility and giving curators better tooling, including the ability to surface high-quality content during breaking news and live events. Feeds are moving from a power-user feature toward a first-class surface.
They solve the onboarding problem. Bluesky's persistent weakness is the empty first week – a chronological Following feed with nobody in it, which is a large part of why registered accounts vastly outnumber daily actives. Subscribing to two good feeds fixes that in about ninety seconds, and it is the advice we would give any new user before "follow more people."
Feeds vs Lists vs Hashtags
These three overlap and people conflate them.
| Custom feed | List | Hashtag | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Selects by | Any logic the operator writes | Accounts you chose | Literal tag match |
| Surfaces new people | Yes | No | Yes |
| Filters spam | Usually | N/A | No |
| You control it | No – operator does | Yes | N/A |
| Best for | Topics | Specific people | Live moments |
Use all three. Feeds for topics, lists for people you have chosen, hashtags for things happening right now.
Building Your Own
The barrier is lower than most people assume.
What a feed generator actually does
It is a web service that implements two endpoints: one describing the feed, and one that receives a request with a cursor and returns a list of post URIs. That is it. Bluesky hydrates the posts itself – you return identifiers, not content.
The typical architecture
- Consume the stream. Connect to Jetstream, filter for posts matching your criteria, write matches to a database with a timestamp.
- Serve the endpoint. On request, query your index, return post URIs newest-first with a cursor.
- Register it. Publish a feed generator record on your account so it appears in the app.
Use Jetstream, not the raw firehose – it is JSON, it filters server-side by collection, and it costs a fraction of the bandwidth and CPU. Our firehose vs Jetstream comparison covers why, and the Jetstream guide covers connecting.
Practical advice
- Persist your cursor durably. Restarting without one silently loses everything from your downtime.
- Prune old posts. Nobody scrolls a topic feed back three months. Retention of a few days keeps your index small and fast.
- Filter spam early. The single biggest determinant of whether people keep your feed subscribed.
- Publish your logic. Transparency is why people trust community feeds over the default one. It is also your main differentiator.
- Handle deletions. When a post is deleted, remove it from your index.
- Expect it to be cheap. A niche topic feed runs comfortably on a small instance – see our Node.js deployment guide for a straightforward hosting setup.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are custom feeds free?
Subscribing is free. Running one costs whatever your hosting costs, which for a small feed is minimal.
Can a feed see who subscribes to it?
Feed generators receive requests and can see which account is asking. Assume the operator can tell you use it.
How many feeds should I pin?
Three to five. Beyond that people stop checking any of them.
Do feeds work in third-party clients?
Yes – feeds are a protocol-level concept, so any AT Protocol client can render them.
What is the difference between Discover and a custom feed?
Discover is Bluesky's own algorithmic feed. Custom feeds are independently operated. Technically the same mechanism; different operators.
Get More from Your Feeds
- Skyscraper for iOS – pin feeds and hashtags to your navigation
- Trending Hashtags – find topics worth building a feed around
- Keyword Alerts – monitoring without running infrastructure