Crop of Twitter alternatives struggle with sudden user growth

The Future. Platforms like Mastodon, Hive, and Post have surged in popularity as many users no longer feel that Twitter is for them under the reign of Elon Musk. That’s typically great news for rivals, but the popularity comes with consequences — security issues, buggy apps, and a need to increase servers quickly. But with a gold rush underway to find a new Twitter, the platform that can get their house in order first may find itself as the most important company of 2023.

We’re gonna need some bigger servers
That’s what Twitter rivals have been telling themselves since users started leaving Twitter in droves.

Fast Company breaks it down:

• Mastodon has been around since 2016, but in the past month, it has grown from 300,000 users to 2.5 million — an increase that made tech experts look closely at the platform and find major security bugs, such as being able to steal user credentials. Founder Eugen Rochko said the organization is working on fixes.
• Hive, which is literally run by three people and hasn’t raised any real investment, saw its user base reach over 1 million. The app crashed, and then the team shut down the servers for days to fix security issues that would’ve enabled hackers to access and steal private information.
• Post is the newest of the bunch at only three weeks old, but it has already scored investment from a16z and Scott Galloway. With the new funds, Post is looking to ramp up hiring and introduce features that users would expect. So far, there are 65,000 users on the platform, with 335,000 on the waitlist.

Maybe one of these will be the next Twitter, but it’s going to take a while for them to mature to a place where they can handle that sort of scale.