Tumblr migrates more than 500 million blogs to WordPress

Enlarge / “You’ll never be bored again” is one of the more fitting slogans attached to Tumblr. (credit: Getty Images)

Once-great social media and blogging platform Tumblr has gone through a number of big changes in recent years, and another one is right around the corner. Parent company Automattic says it is migrating all Tumblr blogs—more than half a billion in number—to the WordPress back end.

In a blog post announcing the initiative this week, Automattic is careful to note that it doesn’t want anything about the front-end user experience of Tumblr to change. We love Tumblr’s streamlined posting experience and its current product direction. We’re not changing that,” a rep wrote.

In terms of user experience, the two blogging platforms have very different emphases. WordPress is meant to be powerful, customizable, and extensible to serve a variety of needs, while Tumblr is meant to streamline the experience to be something like a middle ground between operating a WordPress blog and using something like X or Threads.