There were a good couple, most of them people who waged more or less successful military campaigns against the Romans. Much as it isn't a 'proper' source here (and I'll also give you an actual book source), the Wikipedia list is actually really helpful. Athronges is probably the closest to having a proper following and even Sanhedrin approval - but he was executed when the Romans decided to send in the army.

I'm assuming the question you're asking is 'why did Jesus catch on as a messiah with a following, and other claimants didn't?' The difference is in the way they acted. Since virtually all messiah claimants were military leaders of some sort, their following was closely tied to their success. After all, the Hebrew Bible identifies the messiah by his military leadership and his ability to establish a free Jewish kingdom forever. When any messiah-led revolt was put down, the messiah had failed in his task and was clearly not the true messiah. Judas Maccabaeus comes very close, since he established the Hasmonean kingdom - but then it was conquered by the Romans.

Jesus took a radically different approach (or, rather, his followers believed he was the messiah despite it): his message focused on a spiritual interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. Part of his teaching helped people cope with being oppressed by a foreign power, by promising everlasting life (so a 'spiritual' free Jewish kingdom, if you will) to his followers. This was precisely the kind of stuff that caught on, because it was the message many people needed. So, instead of being the military leader that people expected a messiah to be, he preached a different kind of messiah-like message.

Sources:

• Basically everything the Wikipedia article cites, but especially Lenowitz (1997) and Neusner et al. (1987).

• Kearney, M. World Saviors and Messiahs of the Roman Empire, 28 BCE - 135 CE, Edwin Mellen Press (2009).

• (Brilliant but more a 'further reading' kind of book) Bockmuehl, M. and Paget, J., Redemption and Resistance: The Messianic Hopes of Jews and Christians in Antiquity, T&T Clark (2008).

Hey there, another Jesus thread! Just to get this out of the way early on: the consensus among scholars of biblical times is that Jesus existed. However, this does not imply confirmation of his miracles, divinity, etc. There's a section of our FAQ devoted to this question: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/faq/religion#wiki_did_jesus_exist.3F

To folks coming to comment here: the question is about people claiming to be messiahs, or people following other messiahs, during the time of Jesus. This is not a "post your opinions on Jesus" thread. If you'd like to argue that, please post a new thread.

Thanks!

What separates Jesus from other would-be messianic figures and what separates his followers from theirs, is the belief that Jesus was raised from the dead.

During his life, Jesus was a Jewish apocalyptic prophet. This was a common though not ubiquitous view among Jews of his day. Broadly, they expected that at some point in the near future God was going to intervene in the world, overthrowing the forces of evil who currently held sway and installing a new, godly kingdom. There's reason to believe that Jesus expected that he would be the king of this forthcoming kingdom and that his claims to that effect are why Pilate had him killed. (The Romans would not have cared about issues of blasphemy or impiety, what's leveled against Jesus in trial episodes shown in the gospel, but somebody claiming to be a king is very much what the Romans would be interested in, since it was a direct challenge to their authority.)

When Jesus was executed by the Romans, it shattered his followers' expectations. Like many other apocalyptic and messianic figures, at this point you would expect his followers to lose heart, to disperse, but in Jesus's case something very different happened. Some of his followers became convinced that Jesus had been raised from the dead. We don't know what these very first Christian beliefs looked like, but by the time Paul is writing his letters (20 years after Jesus's death) and later when the gospels are written (starting around 40 years after Jesus's death) the idea of what a messiah is supposed to be has changed drastically from the Jewish expectation.

The Jews anticipated a messiah who would kick out the Romans and many self-proclaimed messiahs tried to do just that. 40 years after Jesus had been conclusively proven not to be that kind of messiah--by being tortured and executed--the Gospel of Mark presents the idea that the messiah isn't supposed to be a conqueror at all but an atoning sacrifice. The Gospels of Matthew, Luke and John in turn present their own views of what it mean to be a messiah. Point is, they're all far from the original Jewish expectation and far from what Jesus's followers likely believed during his life. That transformation of belief is the reason the followers of this particular first century messiah claimant went onto become the world's largest religion and today most of us have never even heard of any others.

Bart Ehrman's How Jesus Became God is all about this question. You can also find lots about it on his blog, though most of the posts are partially behind a paywall.