The best Tumblr al­tern­at­ives

Since 2007, the Tumblr platform has made it possible to publish content in a blog format. Over 490 million blogs and more than 800 million readers are using the popular platform. So that every reader can discover suitable content, the micro-blogging platform offers numerous features. For example, users are re­com­men­ded topics by spe­cify­ing their interests. In addition, a user’s dashboard auto­mat­ic­ally displays the content of all the blogs they follow.

However, there are also some dis­ad­vant­ages because Tumblr focuses primarily on the sharing of content which makes its design less suitable for long texts. According to your personal interests and type of use, a Tumblr al­tern­at­ive may be a better solution for pub­lish­ing your content.

With its focus on visual content, the De­vi­antArt platform is the ideal Tumblr al­tern­at­ive for artists. Your photos, graphics, and il­lus­tra­tions are con­veni­ently shared and displayed to other users. Drawings, paintings, and photos are among the most popular forms of content. However, anime, stock photos, vector graphics, and flash movies are also presented on the platform. Although text content can be published, it’s rather rare on the platform. In addition, users can com­mu­nic­ate with one another via com­ment­ary, their profiles or in numerous groups and forums.

One of the most appealing features for artists is the chance to display their own content on the homepage. However, due to the growing community, this is becoming in­creas­ingly more difficult. The in­teg­rated shop offers special added value for those who create art. User works are displayed and can be purchased by other members. The pur­chasers receive the artwork either as an art print, canvas, photo or as a print on a product – cups, mouse pads and magnets, for example. Best of all, to make use of the shopping feature, a free mem­ber­ship is enough.

Besides Facebook, Instagram has become one of the most important social media networks. For this reason, the online service is at best suitable as a Tumblr al­tern­at­ive for those who would like to share their own or third-party content with real or virtual friends. The re­quire­ment for its use is a free re­gis­tra­tion. Though it’s true that Instagram is also available as a web version, the features are optimised for use on mobile devices.

On Instagram, photos, and videos can be shared. Con­veni­ently, images are edited directly in the app through in­teg­rated filers and optimised before uploading. Photos that are taken spon­tan­eously can be shared quickly and easily with the community. In addition to profiles, users can also follow hashtags – as a result, the feed auto­mat­ic­ally fills up with in­ter­est­ing content. Fur­ther­more, the use of hashtags makes it easier to dis­sem­in­ate your own content. If you set up a free business account, you can view stat­ist­ics to monitor audience reach of your posts and absolute visitor numbers.

Like Facebook, Instagram is a complex social network. In the UK alone, around 26.54 million users are re­gistered. As a result, large follower numbers can be acquired for your content campaign. However, shared content now often contains ad­vert­ise­ments because of numerous creators and in­flu­en­cers making deals with brands to promote their products.

Wordpress is a free content man­age­ment system. In just a few steps, you can create a blog or a separate website using open-source software – without any pro­gram­ming knowledge. WordPress provides you with the hosting, domain and storage space. The available features are con­tinu­ously expanded thanks to a large community which regularly develops new plug-ins, widgets and themes. Mobile-friendly templates make it easier to create re­spons­ive designs. Stat­ist­ics, SEO functions or buttons for sharing content in social networks are among the standard features. Packages available for purchase offer optional cus­tom­ised domain names, ad­di­tion­al designs and plug-ins.

As an al­tern­at­ive to Tumblr, WordPress lets you publish long texts with in­teg­rated images or videos. Though it’s true that creating content is easy, its dis­tri­bu­tion is re­l­at­ively difficult. Unlike with Instagram or De­vi­antArt, there are no hashtags (but keywords instead) and no com­par­able in­teg­rated social network. This is because a WordPress project is always an in­de­pend­ent work project. For this reason, anyone who wants to expand their reach must post regular content and remain patient. There are ways to attract more people to your site, for example, by com­ment­ing on others’ posts, net­work­ing with other bloggers or using internal links.

Evan Williams, the co-founder of Twitter, developed Medium – a Tumblr al­tern­at­ive which provides the option of pub­lish­ing your own blog posts in an appealing and con­sist­ent design. With respect to text length, there are clearly more liberties as well. In addition, the content can be enhanced through embedded videos, images or even Pinterest Pins. Other users can like, comment on, and share your post. With every blog entry the average reading time is auto­mat­ic­ally indicated. Medium also shares insights on the reader stat­ist­ics for your posts.

With over 60 million active users, it can reach many potential readers. The articles on Medium’s dedicated pub­lic­a­tions are of high quality. If your content has already been shared to other pages such as WordPress, for example, you can easily import your posts to Medium. Google views this only as dis­tri­bu­tion of content and for this reason does not punish any duplicate content. Of course, other changes can be performed before pub­lic­a­tion.

Google has its very own blogging platform among its portfolio of products. Con­veni­ently, it’s called Blogger and makes for a good al­tern­at­ive to Tumblr. Similar to WordPress, each blog in the content man­age­ment system receives its own domain. Authors also don’t have to worry about hosting and storage space. For the design, many templates, layouts, and back­ground images are available.

However, the Google al­tern­at­ive contains some ad­di­tion­al ad­vant­ages. With the AdSense online service, ad­vert­ise­ments can auto­mat­ic­ally be displayed in your blog. As a result, you can monetise your posts. To integrate the Google program, no pro­gram­ming knowledge is necessary. With Blogger, you’ll obtain insight on different stat­ist­ics such as monthly page views or data regarding traffic sources. The con­nec­tion to Google Analytics also expands the eval­u­ation options. Fur­ther­more, your blog may be more visible in Google search engines than on other blogging platforms.

The name Pinterest combines the words pin and interest. In­ter­est­ing content is pinned according to the name and thus stored in a separate col­lec­tion. The visually oriented platform is similar to an image database. Both your posts and those by third parties are displayed to users on boards with different topics. Those who are in­ter­ested have the option of following those Pins that are of interest to them. As a result, it’s much easier to address different target groups when using this Tumblr al­tern­at­ive. Pinterest is also con­veni­ent for sharing YouTube videos or Instagram postings.

The Tumblr Al­tern­at­ive memosnag enables the user to collect and publish any web-based and offline content - whether images, videos, text, links or complete web pages. The content can be easily sorted and presented in galleries or as com­pre­hens­ive col­lec­tions. Users can choose between private and public col­lec­tions, which can be commented on and shared, similar to Tumblr’s re-blogging system. Browser ex­ten­sions for Chrome and Firefox as well as apps for iOS and Android make storing and col­lect­ing content easy. In most cases, a simple click is enough to add what you want to your own memosnag project.

Memosnag gets used in all kinds of ways, just like it caters to all kinds of content-col­lect­ors! Students who conduct research can sys­tem­at­ic­ally store relevant articles and sources and retrieve them at any time, while teachers can use the platform to dis­trib­ute learning materials or research ref­er­ences, for example. The al­tern­at­ive to Tumblr is also great for domestic use too, though. Shopping wish lists or a col­lec­tion of favourite videos from well-known video platforms such as YouTube can be shared via memosnag, you can start dis­cus­sions on topics, or you can publish your own content on the platform.