Automattic is Migrating Tumblr to WordPress

Automattic announced last week its plan to migrate Tumblr to WordPress, a move described as “one of the largest technical migrations in internet history.” This move comes after Automattic acquired Tumblr in 2019, marking the company’s biggest acquisition at the time.

During the acquisition, Matt Mullenweg had pointed out that “Tumblr and WordPress have always been very philosophically aligned.” An emerging Tumblr/WordPress plugin and theme ecosystem were on the cards, and Matt said that once Tumblr’s backend is on WordPress, the idea of plugins can be explored.

After the acquisition, Tumblr faced tough times, with Matt revealing last year that it was spending about $30 million more than its annual earnings. The porn ban didn’t help matters, but the Twitter Exodus of early 2023 following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social media site gave it a sudden boost.

The migration announcement post said, “We’re not talking about changing Tumblr. We’re not turning Tumblr into WordPress. That would defeat the purpose. We acquired Tumblr to benefit from its differences and strengths, not to water it down. We love Tumblr’s streamlined posting experience and its current product direction. We’re not changing that. We’re talking about running Tumblr’s backend on WordPress. You won’t even notice a difference from the outside.”

Automattic reiterated that “The changes will be exclusively at the backend.”

The migration though not easy – with Tumblr hosting over half a billion blogs – will be a win-win situation for both WordPress and Tumblr. Automattic believes that “Tumblr will benefit from the collective effort that goes into the open source WordPress project. And WordPress will benefit from the tools and creativity we invest into Tumblr and contribute back to WordPress.”

Men Wanted for Hazardous Journey

Automattic is actively seeking experienced PHP programmers to undertake this migration project. Matt compared this to the famous British explorer Ernest Shackleton’s recruitment ad for his Antarctic expedition, which read, “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.”

The advertisement continues, “If you’re an experienced programmer… if you’re a SQL‑slinger… if you’ve worked on other big audacious projects like this… if Gordian knots tremble in your presence, we want to work with you!”

“We’re already seeing interesting candidates apply and resume review is underway for full-time roles. All relevant experience is welcome, particularly those who have worked on other large migrations or are just excited about working on a challenge of this size.”

– Bob Ralian, Tumblr Migration Lead

Interested candidates can apply through the website giving a brief introduction about themselves. The post does not give any details about the remuneration or the application deadline.

Community Response

Matt tweeted “I’m excited about this one.”, while Eric Karkovack of Speckyboy quipped “Will there be a project status blog? If so, I’d recommend calling it “Tumblng Into WordPress”.”

Platform Lead Engineer at Pew Research Center Seth Rubenstein tweeted, “This is so exciting. I hope this means it becomes easier to create Tumblr themes in the future; especially, dare I say, if they’re just block themes…” Courtney Robertson, Open Source Developer Advocate at GoDaddy, also hopes to see more “ block themes supporting post formats SOON.”

Head of WP Relations at Elementor, Miriam Schwab dubbed it “The ultimate “data liberation” project” while Developer Advocate WPEngine Damon Cook speculated, “I wonder if there will be outcomes from this large migration that could overlap and help solve pieces of the Data Liberation project.”

Product Designer Yash Bhardwaj was excited ”This will go down in history books similar to some ancient empire conquering another.”

Nick Weisser of Openstream is optimistic “This would represent a significant increase in the market share of #WordPress, pushing it from around 43% to over 60%?”

I’m sure no one foresaw these developments when Jeff Chandler wrote “WordPress To Be More Tumblr Like” in 2010.