Hive Social: What It Is and How to Join It

Hive Social is one of the social networks that got significant attention and user signups following the sale of Twitter to Elon Musk. This article takes a look at how Hive Social works, how to sign up for and use it, and how Hive Social compares to Twitter.

What Is Hive Social?

Hive Social is a social network founded by Raluca (aka Kassandra) Pop in 2019. The company has since expanded to include a designer and some developers but continues to be a fairly small operation.

Hive Social provides a platform very similar to Twitter in terms of its features and functionality. Unlike Twitter, though, Hive Social can only be used via its iOS and Android apps; it doesn't offer a web-based version.

The platform experienced an uptick in activity and interest as users sought a new platform after Elon Musk purchased Twitter. The company claimed to have 1.5 million users as of Nov. 2022.

How Does Hive Social Work?

Using Hive Social is very similar to using Twitter. You can post short messages, including images, polls, and videos, and follow other people to see their messages and interact with each other.

While those aspects of Hive are similar to Twitter, the platform distinguishes itself with no limits on the number of characters that can be included in a post and, crucially, by only offering a chronological timeline. This means you see the messages posted by people you follow in the order they were posted, in contrast to Twitter's algorithmic timeline, which tries to guess what you'll want to see, regardless of when it was posted.

Users can express themselves by customizing the colors of their profile pages and by embedding songs that play when others look at their profiles.

The site offers a suite of privacy and content-control tools, including the ability to block and mute accounts and words, to filter NSFW content (users can post it, but must tag it as NSFW so others can filter it), and to se accounts to private.

How Do I Join Hive Social? 

To join Hive Social, download the app for your smartphone and then create an account with an email address and password, and choose a username. Download for:

What Does Hive Social Cost?

Hive Social is free to use. All basic features and options are available to all users for free.

The site makes money in two ways. First, it crowdfunded investment via the WeFunder platform. As of this writing, that campaign was closed but had raised US$307,000 from 777 people.

Additionally, Hive Social charges users if they want to use more than one song on their profile page. Adding a second song costs $0.99, while a third and fourth song costs $1.99. As of this writing, the ability to add songs was disabled due to an unspecified error and there was no way to add a payment method to your account.

During our testing, we didn't see any ads on the platform.

How Does Hive Social Compare to Twitter?

A checklist won't really be a determining factor as to which platform you choose to spend time with, but there are enough similarities that a direct comparison is interesting.

Conclusion

Hive Social is really similar to Twitter—so similar that it's a little hard to see its differentiated value. There's clearly interest and promise in the platform but with the relatively small number of users, it remains to be seen whether Hive will be able to stand out from the Twitter-alternative pack.