X is closing its Communities feature on May 6, 2026, replacing it with group chats on XChat in a move that has drawn sharp criticism from users and community administrators who say the platform is abandoning a feature they had invested in building.
What Is Changing
The Communities feature, which enabled users to join Facebook-style groups, is being discontinued due to what X describes as lower engagement levels. In its place, X has upgraded XChat to allow users to generate joinable public links for group chats and share them directly on their timeline, removing the need for manual invitations.
XChat (X’s standalone messaging app) is launching on iOS this week, offering end-to-end encryption, no ads, no tracking, group chats, video calls, disappearing messages, and the ability to block screenshots. Group chats currently support up to 350 members per chat, with Nikita Bier indicating the limit will increase over time.
The rollout is iOS-only for now. Android support is missing at launch, which analysts have flagged as a strategic vulnerability.
Why Users Are Pushing Back
The backlash has been swift. Community administrators are particularly frustrated by the tight timeline: users currently managing an X Community have only a two-week window to migrate, with Bier recommending that admins create a new XChat link and pin it to their existing Community page before the old framework is removed.
Users on the platform were also quick to point out the irony in X’s decision. X previously shut down its Circles feature (a smaller, private posting tool) partly to shift users toward Communities. Now, Communities itself is being axed.
The Bigger Strategic Picture
The shift reflects a broader strategic pivot by Elon Musk, from public, algorithm-driven engagement to private, ad-free communication. XChat is being positioned as a direct competitor to WhatsApp and Signal, leveraging seamless integration with the X ecosystem as its core advantage.
Whether that bet pays off is another question. The key test will be whether users actually switch from WhatsApp or Signal, or whether XChat remains a feature for X power users. Analysts are watching early retention figures: if daily active users dip below 40% in the first 30 days, XChat risks being dismissed as a niche tool rather than a mainstream messenger.
The broader context for X is not flattering. Data shows that 31% of nonprofits plan to leave X or shut down their accounts, with 75% already building presences on Threads and Bluesky. Discontinuing Communities (the feature that was supposed to give X a Reddit-like depth for niche audiences) accelerates rather than reverses that trend.
For now, community administrators have until May 6 to move their members to XChat or find alternatives elsewhere. Many are already doing the latter.
