X is set to discontinue its Communities feature in May 2026, as confirmed by X Head of Product Nikita Bier. The Communities feature, aimed at enabling users to create and moderate interest-specific groups, struggled to gain traction and saw less than 0.4% user adoption.
The lack of engagement with Communities has resulted in significant challenges for the platform. “Communities had a great vision, but they were used by less than 0.4% of users — yet contributed to 80% of spam reports, financial scams, and malware on X,” Bier stated. The feature consumed considerable resources, taking up to half the team’s time during certain weeks, which adversely affected the app’s overall performance.
Today we're announcing two product changes for organizing communities on X:
1. XChat now supports joinable links for groupchats. Create a public link & share direct to Timeline. With support for 350 members per chat (and growing), Groupchat Links are the fastest way to bring… pic.twitter.com/GNcRB99Opc
— Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) April 22, 2026
Despite some successful groups, Bier noted that the most active ones frequently served other purposes, referring to them as “user-acquisition channels for Kick or compensated clipper communities,” diverging from the original intent of Communities.
On April 22, 2026, X announced two changes to enhance community organization: the introduction of joinable links for group chats on its new XChat platform. Currently, XChat allows for group chats with up to 350 members, with plans to increase this capacity to 1,000 members in the future.
Moderators can pin links within Communities, facilitating members’ transition to group chats before the feature’s complete retirement on May 30, 2026, extended from the original deadline of May 6. However, a live group chat fundamentally differs from the asynchronous experience provided by Communities, demanding immediate user engagement.
Users seeking organized feeds of topical posts will need to utilize X’s new custom timelines feature, which employs Grok to curate feeds based on user interests, such as food, art, or photography.
