Five years after the acquisition of Tumblr by WordPress’ parent company, Automattic, the blog site is finally moving to WordPress.
The said measure will shift Tumblr’s backend to WordPress. However, Automattic clarified that Tumblr would remain as it is. The site will only run on WordPress.
Automattic believes the move will be an advantage to the company since it will maximize the resources for Tumblr and WordPress, especially in building tools and features.
Tumblr will benefit from open-source developments in WordPress.org. On the other hand, WordPress will be able to make use of the tools and creativity invested in Tumblr.
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However, the change won’t be easy. Currently, Tumblr hosts more than half a billion blogs. According to Automattic, the migration of Tumblr will be the largest technical migration in history. Automattic did not specify the timeline for the migration or any roadmap.
This is not the first time that large-scale migrations have happened. The most recent and one of the biggest ones is when Twitter changed its back end and architecture while keeping the site fully functional. Moreover, Slack and MySpace also experienced major code changes in the past.
Tumblr first gained popularity as a microblogging and social media site. In 2013, Yahoo acquired it for $1.1 billion but then sold it to Automattic in 2019. However, in subsequent years, Tumblr has struggled to maintain its user base.