Twitter Tells Developers to Stop Making Mainstream Clients

Twitter has published an update on the Twitter platform indicating that developers are no longer welcome to create mainstream Twitter clients.

Developers have told us that they’d like more guidance from us about the best opportunities to build on Twitter. More specifically, developers ask us if they should build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience. The answer is no.

If you are an existing developer of client apps, you can continue to serve your user base, but we will be holding you to high standards to ensure you do not violate users’ privacy, that you provide consistency in the user experience, and that you rigorously adhere to all areas of our Terms of Service. We have spoken with the major client applications in the Twitter ecosystem about these needs on an ongoing basis, and will continue to ensure a high bar is maintained.


Twitter notes that 90% of active Twitter users use their official clients on a monthly basis and suggests that developers focus on areas outside of the mainstream consumer client experience such as: Publisher tools, Curation, Realtime data signals, Social CRM, entreprise clients, brand insights, Value-added content and vertical experiences.

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