Instagram Alternative Flashes is Now Running in Beta

Flashes app

A new photo-sharing app closely linked to Bluesky has been launched in beta with thousands of users signing up immediately.

The app has been launched by independent developer Sebastian Vogelsang who says it is just him building the app in his free time “while juggling work and family life.” Despite the small operation, interest in a new picture-based app is growing as many people seek to escape Meta’s network of apps for numerous reasons not least because of Mark Zuckerberg’s recent controversial decision to get rid of fact-checkers.

Flashes will allow users to share up to four photos per post and will also support one-minute-long videos. The app is powered by the same technology that supports Bluesky, a decentralized social media app that has a similar look and feel to X.

TechCrunch reports that Flashes in a Bluesky client and posts on Flashes will also appear on Bluesky. Bluesky users can comment on those posts which will appear on Flashes. To fill up the feed, Flashes will display photos and videos posted on Bluesky and users will be able to switch between their own Bluesky feed and Flashes.

Vogelsang is hoping to benefit from Bluesky’s growing popularity, which recently hit a milestone of 30 million users and one billion posts. “This may give them an entry point into the network, into the whole protocol,” he tells TechCrunch.

The beta launch didn’t go smoothly: it runs on Apple’s TestFlight platform and the beta was temporarily shut down before reopening. The 3,000 or so beta tester spots filled up in a matter of hours.

Flashes will be familiar to Instagram users: Vogelsang has added a double tap to like feature and zoom gestures to enlarge images. Although these features can be turned on and off.

Many early users of Flashes are requesting chronological timelines and in that regard the app has three timeline options: “Trending,” “Timeline,” and “Following.” The latter is the chronological timeline.

Vogelsang says he plans to launch Flashes on Android soon. “The decision to launch on iOS first wasn’t about some hidden agenda or excluding Android users—it simply came down to using the tools I know best to bring this to life,” he writes on Bluesky.