Tumblr Alternatives are microblogging websites that tries to emulate the PHP-coded Tumblr and improve on it, but this isn't an easy task. Most projects start from nothing and don't have Tumblr's hosting power, so they easily become a Facebook, LiveJournal, or Twitter clone.

It isn't a secret that Tumblr is poorly managed, so the idea of kicking off a new Tumblr clone has been thrown around for years, but they often fail due to lack of a funding, organized sabotage, and people getting antsy or scared whenever the project stagnates.

Inkstand (inkstandapp) was a Ruby on Rails project¹⁾ that first emerged on November 29, 2014²⁾ and initially got a boost from a false censorship scare.³⁾⁴⁾ One of the developers was ousted from the team for allegedly being racist,⁵⁾⁶⁾ then people started getting paranoid.⁷⁾⁸⁾

Despite this, they started an Indiegogo campaign on August 3, 2015,⁹⁾ but only raised $435 of their $10,000 goal.¹⁰⁾ They persevered,¹¹⁾ even allowing people to reserve their Indiegogo accounts,¹²⁾¹³⁾ and aimed for a huge alpha launch by January 2016.¹⁴⁾

Unfortunately, the project would be declared dead since nobody was coding,¹⁵⁾ likely since one of them had health problems, and backers were refunded in full.¹⁶⁾ Additionally, they said that they might have news on June 11, 2016,¹⁷⁾ but never actually followed up on it. At the time of the project's death, the team consisted of four people who were "Alice", "Pastry", “Holly”, and "Jen".¹⁸⁾

Briar Nexus (briarnexus) was a two-part project with a social network called Briar Haven and a virtual pet simulator called NexusPets. It had launched on November 30, 2014¹⁹⁾ and generally advertised themselves as an “online safe space” for their primary selling point.²⁰⁾

Their first issue was funding: starting a GoFundMe campaign²¹⁾ but cancelling it,²²⁾ starting a Kickstarter campaign²³⁾ that failed its $1,500 goal,²⁴⁾ and lastly starting an Indiegogo campaign, raising $1,028.²⁵⁾ However, their next issue was stagnation and the developer refused to admit the project was dead until a year later on September 19, 2016.²⁶⁾ The developer, “IceOfWaterFlock”, would rename to "Canonkiller".

Tanburu was a beginner PHP project²⁷⁾ by “Thellere” (thelltrolls) that started around May 2015,²⁸⁾ but it faced vigilante raiders after gaining negative attention on July 31, 2015²⁹⁾³⁰⁾ and closed on August 2, 2015. It later reopened as invite-only,³¹⁾ but eventually vanished in 2016.

After this project, the developer “Thellere” would later be seen working with the Homestuck fan game, The Overseer Project,³²⁾ and allegedly tried to build a video game company off of someone else's work.³³⁾

Pillowfort (pillowfort-social) is a Ruby on Rails project that emerged on November 3, 2015³⁴⁾ and launched an Indiegogo campaign on May 29, 2016,³⁵⁾ initially raising a total of $5,239.³⁶⁾ The beta servers launched on February 3, 2017 and invites were sent out in waves.³⁷⁾

After focusing on a small sample of users,³⁸⁾³⁹⁾ they launched a separate Kickstarter campaign on July 25, 2018⁴⁰⁾ which raised $57,040 and they switched to a $5 paywall model.⁴¹⁾ During Tumblr's adult content fiasco, Pillowfort rushed to fix a security vulnerability,⁴²⁾⁴³⁾ but the servers couldn't handle the stress.

In 2020, they finally announced plans to leave open beta,⁴⁴⁾ had a small artist-fueled boom around May 30, 2020,⁴⁵⁾ and became “public” by opening a five-day window of free registrations in late January 2021,⁴⁶⁾⁴⁷⁾ but faced a major security vulnerability⁴⁸⁾ and comedically shut down almost immediately, being put in a read-only⁴⁹⁾ for three months.⁵⁰⁾⁵¹⁾ As of 2022, Pillowfort has revamped their UI.⁵²⁾⁵³⁾

WritScrib (writscrib) was a PHP project that had both emerged and launched its Indiegogo campaign on May 26, 2017⁵⁴⁾⁵⁵⁾ which raised $16,638, excluding processing fees and PayPal funds.⁵⁶⁾ They would later begin their closed beta on September 30, 2017.⁵⁷⁾

A few months later, their public beta began on December 31, 2017,⁵⁸⁾ but they were mostly a lame Facebook clone. On July 31, 2018, they would announce their plans to shut down, due to a lack of funds and decreasing userbase, then closed for good on August 31, 2018.⁵⁹⁾⁶⁰⁾

Swarmr was a bare bones website that /u/swarmrofficial created on September 5, 2017, concerned with Verizon buying Yahoo and killing Tumblr's efforts for net neutrality.⁶¹⁾ That aside, the website sucked, did the bare minimum, and didn't allow account deletion.

You can't find a way to contact staff on the website itself and the Reddit account declined to comment when I had questioned their involvement. Swarmr announced its shutdown on June 8, 2020, but cited the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason⁶²⁾ which only raises more questions.

NewTumbl (newtumbl-2019) was a project by “Dean”⁶³⁾ that would emerge on December 15, 2018.⁶⁴⁾⁶⁵⁾ It was a rather ambitious clone that had a rating system,⁶⁶⁾⁶⁷⁾ which users volunteered to review, and it had a customizable dashboard, though it wasn't flawless.

They heavily emphasized free speech,^68)69)70) but restricted Tor, VPN, or proxy use⁷¹⁾ and just vehemently refused to let people send questions anonymously.⁷²⁾⁷³⁾ Furthermore, it was mostly adult-oriented. The website eventually ended up shutting down around early June 2023.

Cohost (@cohost_org) is a platform by the “Anti Software Software Club” that was first conceptualized in 2019, began its closed beta around Febuary 2022,⁷⁴⁾ then it formally went public as an invite-only early access website on June 28, 2022.⁷⁵⁾⁷⁶⁾

Following the Twitter acquisition, Cohost switched to a delayed registration system around October 2022.⁷⁷⁾ However in 2024, the financial troubles began.⁷⁸⁾⁷⁹⁾ Then on September 9, 2024, it was announced that Cohost would be entering read-only mode on October 1, 2024 with the intent to shut down by the end of the year.⁸⁰⁾

Bdsmlr is an adult-oriented website that began as a BDSM themed Pinterest clone on May 17, 2013,⁸¹⁾ before becoming a Tumblr clone around late May 2014.⁸²⁾ That aside, Bdsmlr hasn't really advertised itself, and they only started their Twitter in late June 2019.⁸³⁾⁸⁴⁾

As a Tumblr clone, it has horrible web design, everything is shoved inside menus, announcements are embedded on the dashboard, and the logo looks like it was done with the Impact font. There's also the fact that they're an adult-oriented website, which tends to turn people away.

Viewy (Вьюи, Vyui) was a Russian-language clone of pre-acquisition Tumblr that launched in 2008, except it was really obscure and faced issues with a deteriorating codebase, intrusive ads, and apparently ditched their premium service.⁸⁵⁾

On October 4, 2019, Viewy ditched their archaic codebase. They remain blog-oriented,⁸⁶⁾ but they aren't a Tumblr clone anymore. Instead, the service has shifted onto notes, which are essentially just basic blog posts. Basically, it's like Wordpress with aesthetics now.

In China, microblogging is more associated with Twitter and Facebook feeds since they're way more popular compared to Tumblr. Diandian (点点, lit. “Little by Little”) had launched in February 2011,⁸⁷⁾ but it's been abandoned since 2015. Qing is another website by Sina Corp that was established on May 2011 and once affiliated with Weibo,⁸⁸⁾ but it was abandoned for a standard blogging experience.