It's always fascinating to me that proponents of Activity Pub are always like, "Just use AP, it's better." Isn't the point of decentralization to have no single point of failure? Why doesn't that mean multiple protocols? Everyone who argues that point honestly just sounds salty to me.
Jul 16, 2026 at 1:18 PM
How decentralized is Bluesky really? -- Dustycloud Brainstorms
Recently due to various events (namely a lot of people getting off of X-Twitter), Bluesky has become a lot more popular, and excitement for its underlying protocol, ATProto, is growing. Since I worked on ActivityPub which connects together Mastodon, Sharkey, Peertube, GotoSocial, etc, etc, etc in the present-day fediverse, I often get asked whether or not I have opinions about ATProto vs ActivityPub, and the answer is that I do have opinions, but I am usually head-down focused on building what I hope to be the next generation of decentralized (social) networking tech, and so I keep to myself about such things except in private channels.
Decentralization Trade Offs in AT Protocol and ActivityPub DWeb Camp 2026
Christine Lemmer Webber is lead author and co-editor of the W3C ActivityPub specification. Daniel Holmgren is Head of Protocol at Bluesky, working on the AT Protocol specification at the IETF. Join us for a discussion on decentralization trade-offs and other design decisions in the two protocols, and what that means for different architectures, structures, and even future points of convergence. Moderated by Boris Mann
ActivityPub, AT Protocol, and more!
Talking about this article and how ActivityPub and AT Protocol are maybe not as different as people might think. We covered some slides to an unrecorded talk of mine, which explores a lot of things...
A conceptual model of ATProto and ActivityPub
If you were to design an open social networking protocol, what would that look like? Which metaphors and comparisons would you use to get a general idea of how the network functions? And what would you answer if people ask if your network is decentralised and federated?
ActivityPub Won by Being Boring
At FediForum 2026, ActivityPub co-author Evan Prodromou explained why the protocol succeeded by staying deliberately ordinary and why the W3C's Q3 2026 revision needs to keep it that way.
Practical Decentralization
The point of decentralization is to guarantee the rights of individuals and communities on the Internet. Pulling that off is a balancing act between practicality and ideology.
Practical Decentralization
The point of decentralization is to guarantee the rights of individuals and communities on the Internet. Pulling that off is a balancing act between practicality and ideology.
Statement on discourse about ActivityPub and AT Protocol
Foreword This statement was originally published on the swicg/general repository after I had been granted approval to merge. Since then one community member has raised that it did not follow the Community Group's processes, and consequently the document has been taken down from the original location. When publishing,
Where Does Community Live?
ActivityPub and ATProto both promise to rebuild social life online, but they answer the question of where community actually forms in fundamentally different ways. Protocol design is institutional design, and right now those institutions are being built.
FediForum Talk: How To Bullshit Your Way Through a Conversation about ActivityPub
By Evan Prodromou, Social Web Foundation and editor of the ActivityPub standard. One of the best bluffers in the field of distributed social networks gives you just enough knowledge about ActivityP...
Some of us in the ActivityPub world feel jealous of AtProto’s success (like me). But more decentralization is a win for everyone. With Bridgy from @anew.social connecting protocols, this isn’t competition, it’s momentum. We’re stronger together, so let’s build the social web humanity deserves 🚀
Many people are talking about decentralized social media protocols like #ActivityPub and #ATProto and all the amazing things one can do with them. But do you actually know how they work? We thought we'd do something about this. Come to #FediForum next week if you are curious and like to find […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social"If your decentralised protocol is missing features, the market will add them with centralisation." — @goat.navy *This*: - is why why the web was captured; - is why email became concentrated; - is why ActivityPub, as defined today, isn't capture-resistant.
