Long-time users of Twitter (X) may remember TweetDeck, an alternate dashboard that added features such as columns and improved tweet scheduling. Renamed X Pro, TweetDeck continues to exist, although its popularity has waned, partly because a free version no longer exists and partly because of the exodus from X in the last few months.

For those who once used TweetDeck and have since migrated to Bluesky (Figure 1), deck.blue (Figure 2), a TweetDeck clone, offers both free and subscription versions on Bluesky. At the time of writing, deck.blue as 19.7k followers on Bluesky, the sort of numbers that follow celebrities and major causes. Whether deck.blue’s use will grow with the platform is uncertain, since Bluesky’s default interface is still evolving and already offers many of the enhancements that once boosted TweetDeck’s popularity.

Figure 1: Bluesky is the trending microblogging site that deck.blue depends on.

Figure 2: Deck.blue’s multi-column layout is inspired by TweetDeck (now X Pro).

Origin Story

Software engineer Gildásio Filo starting developing deck.blue in August 2023. Gildásio (as he prefers to be called) has a history of developing Android and iOS apps and wrote the first version of deck.blue in two months using Flutter. More recently, he has been joined in the project by Shinya Kato. Gildásio writes, “After I got removed from TweetDeck, I basically started this project out of spite. Bluesky is the only social network that I believe has the potential to be the new town square of the Internet.”

An alternative to Bluesky’s native interface, deck.blue is released under an MIT license, making it usable for both free software and commercial purposes. Bluesky’s native interface is an improvement on X’s (Twitter’s), noteworthy for its innovations such as tabs, greater user control over the algorithm that creates post feeds, and the ability to create start kits (lists of accounts that users can subscribe to and follow). The free version of deck.blue presents Bluesky’s innovations in a different interface, while the tiered paid versions offer additional features.

To run deck.blue, you must first create a Bluesky account. Then you can log into deck.blue, replacing the account and password examples in the login fields with your own.

Navigating deck.blue

Users of Twitter/X and Bluesky will find deck.blue familiar, but not identical. The top of the left-hand panel begins with the same icons as X: one for posting and one for search. Below these are icons for the feeds that Bluesky creates at first login: Home (the account’s main feed), You (posts written in the account), Notifications, Likes, and Media. By default, each of these Bluesky feeds has its own scrollable column to the right. Unlike Bluesky, deck.blue does not yet have Chat, nor any of the Following and Discovery feeds in the tabs across the top of the page. Also missing are the feeds generated when an account starts to follow others (e.g., I have feeds for Museums, Writing, and Books). Presumably, these features will be added in a later release, since the diversity of feeds is what gives Bluesky much of its appeal. By contrast, in X, it is much more difficult to find these feeds. How many users, for example, will know to look for their posts under Profile? Similarly, while search results suggest that a Likes feed was once on Twitter’s menu, it appears gone in X. Noticeably, too, like Bluesky, deck.blue does not currently offer Premium services or X’s various tools for monetizing microblogging, let alone a list of what is trending, perhaps under the assumption that users prefer to follow their own interests. Possibly, these features are planned for the future.

At the bottom of the left-hand panel are general controls (Figure 3), which seems a fitting place because most of these controls are likely to be used less often than those at the top. A possible exception is Bookmarks, found under Settings, that could be useful for storing searches and frequently read accounts. Other settings allow columns and accounts to be added, profile features to be edited, and other accounts to be moderated or blocked. As well, settings for all columns can be assigned from Settings.

Figure 3: The deck.blue’s general settings.

To make best use of deck.blue, the application needs to be full-screen. Anything less, and the amount of scrolling required tends to negate the advantage of having all feeds visible all the time in columns. In the same way, more than four to six columns makes each column so narrow that it is less readable except on a larger monitor. The default settings for columns is likely reasonable for most users, but each can be edited from the icons along the top (Figure 4). The displayed posts in each column can be filtered by criteria such as language, words to mute, or whether a post includes media content, while the display of posts can be customized in numerous ways. Besides column length, displays can be adjusted by post type, labels, the presentation of quotes, embedded material such as videos, and refresh rates.

Figure 4: Each column in deck.blue can be filtered or customized individually.

To Use or Not Too Use?

Since Bluesky itself is evolving, deck.blue is likely to change, too. However, many users, especially those with multiple accounts or a wide range of interests, may already find deck.blue worthwhile. For those familiar with TweetDeck or X Pro, deck.blue might be especially welcome. However, from what I have seen, opinions seem divided between the clean look of Bluesky’s tabs and the convenience of deck.blue’s columns. Potential users also have to face the question of whether to use the free version or one of the tiered paid accounts: Booster, Initial, Helper, or Sponsor. These tiers vary in the number of accounts that can used and the number of posts that can be scheduled. The tiers also allow the interface to be color coded. Pricing ranges from $1 to $7 per month, a price that many may find acceptable for a familiar interface. Given deck.blue’s thousands of followers on Bluesky, there does seem to be a market for it.

At the same time, deck.blue does not yet have all the features of X Pro. In particular, it lacks ad controls, a feature that will become important when Bluesky starts selling advertising. The chances are, too, that Bluesky’s native interface will continue to add features. In the end, the current attraction of deck.blue may be temporary and consist largely of nostalgia. Any decision may depend, too, on how much Bluesky grows and how quickly.