masterpost of tumblr alternatives olderglow:
this post will be updated as I find more websites to add! please check with the original before reblogging to see if there’s an updated version, and message me with corrections or more suggestions if you have them!!
websites in red have explicitly forbidden the posting of NSFW content. websites in orange allow certain types of NSFW content or have questionable / unclear guidelines.
for general use
friendproject.net - built on myspace, great blog customization
gab.ai - added for completeness, but has a huge alt-right + racism issue
joinmastodon.org - basically like if twitter and discord had a child??
mewe.com - privacy-focused, has groups and private messages
minds.com - allows you to exchange traffic for being promoted (??)
myspace.com - yes, it still exists, i’m just as surprised as you
nibblebit.com - similar to tumblr with reblogs / likes / customizing of blogs
pinterest.ca - easy sharing and collecting, but has many issues with theft
swarmr.com - an exact tumblr clone down to the default images (??)
twitter.com - allows posting both text and photos in sets, allows retweets
geared towards writers and bloggers
archiveofourown.org - specializes in hosting fic, excellent tagging system
dreamwidth.org - a blogging site similar to livejournal or wordpress
fanfiction.net - another big name in fanfic posting
livejournal.com - technically an option, likely unsafe for LGBTQ peeps
mibba.com - for creative writers, centered around community feedback
quotev.com - decent website for original / fan fic and fandom quizzes
royalroad.com - hosts webnovels and other fanfic, nice dark theme
wattpad.com - modern pretty fic site with direct links to irl publishers
wordpress.com - old and well-established, often considered the default
geared towards artists and photographers
artstation.com - excellent website for posting professional art portfolios
behance.net - meant for professionals posting various visual media types
deviantart.com - huge community, allows posting art + sorting into folders
flickr.com - great community for photographers, can join groups
furaffinity.net - similar to DA but for furries, easy to display commish info
galleria.emotionflow.com - very similar to pixiv, with imo better tagging
instagram.com - photo and video posts, excellent tag search
newgrounds.com - an oldie but a goodie, allows a ton of media types
piczel.tv - allows both streaming and posting art / photosets to a gallery
pixiv.net - huge anime art community, allows livestreaming
vero.co - app only, similar to insta but with MUCH more privacy control
chat or forum based
aminoapps.com - community-based, has blogs + chat, custom themes
discordapp.com - great chat app, text + voice, can join infinite servers
reddit.com - literally a community for everything, SO MANY CAT PHOTOS
18+ only
bdsmlr.com - microblogging + social media for people into kink
blogr.xxx - a tumblr clone created specifically for sharing porn
fetlife.com - considered one of the biggest kink communities online
libertine.center - beautiful + modern site for posting irl nsfw and kink stuff
thefetlibrary.com - for posting of erotic stories, replaces bdsmlibrary
paid platforms
patreon.com - subscription-based access to many diff types of content
typepad.com - similar to wordpress but with reblogging and a dash
up-and-coming platforms
pillowfort.io - closed beta. should function almost identically to tumblr but with many many improvements
poizen.me - development alpha. gorgeous website for artists to post art AND track comms
this one’s still early in development but looks incredibly promising as a platform and super pretty to look at!! go snap up a username before all the good ones are taken! favouritism what’s that
qink.co - pre-alpha. 18+ only. plans to be a kink-oriented replacement for tumblr.
defunct platforms
(so people will stop telling me i forgot them)
jux.com - shut down in 2014 due to lack of funds
shoandtell.me - now redirects to someone’s personal blog
soup.io - more or less closed down this year due to GDPR issues
ways to save your current tumblr posts
use the wayback machine! you do have to archive each page of your blog individually but once you do all the content, including media, will be saved exactly as it was at the moment you archived it.
wordpress allows you to directly import whole tumblr blogs, and if i recall correctly it’s something both dreamwidth and pillowfort have said they are working on.
tumblthree is a great tool with a ton of functions including downloading whole blogs, only posts tagged with a certain tag, all the posts you’ve liked, etc. etc. along with being able to download every type of media hosted on tumblr (pictures, videos, audio, everything). it also has a proper GUI so no computer knowledge required beyond downloading and running programs!
if you have some knowledge of computers you can try this github solution which uses a python script to download your whole blog to your computer. even if you don’t know anything about programming or the command line they give a very good beginners tutorial on how to use it so you should still give it a shot!
if that’s still a little daunting you can try soarcodes’ tumblr post that also has a decent tutorial!
here’s another python script that should allow you to archive all the images from your blog or your likes, though it requires some knowledge of python and the command line or very very good google skills.
some notes
edit: please stop commenting on this post to self-promote your porn accounts on other sites. those replies / reblogs will be deleted or hidden.
please note that every site on this list will have pros and cons, and i haven’t listed them here since this post would be a mile long otherwise. please do your research before moving completely over to another site in case they have policies you disagree with.
also, because I see a lot of misinformed people ranting about this: deviantart does not own the art you post. some years ago hot topic stole a ton of art from DA and sold it on merchandise and people assumed that DA gave them permission to do it despite there being literally zero evidence for that claim. DA explictly states in their TOS that you retain copyright and sole license of the art you post.
and related, mastodon does not allow or condone CP or pedophilia. the people spreading this info are misinformed about what mastodon is. it is not an exact twitter clone; anyone anywhere can host a mastodon instance using their personal computer as a server, which means mastodon as a company can’t do jack shit to moderate them. what they DO is permanently block all users from every other instance from viewing or interacting with that instance, and add that instance to a publicly viewable list along with the reason for the block. please give their post about anti-abuse measures a read before making snap judgements.
post version 5.1, 2018-12-04 23:46 AST
this post will be updated as I find more websites to add! please check with the original before reblogging to see if there’s an updated version, and message me with corrections or more suggestions if you have them!!
websites in red have explicitly forbidden the posting of NSFW content. websites in orange allow certain types of NSFW content or have questionable / unclear guidelines.
for general use
friendproject.net - built on myspace, great blog customization
gab.ai - added for completeness, but has a huge alt-right + racism issue
joinmastodon.org - basically like if twitter and discord had a child??
mewe.com - privacy-focused, has groups and private messages
minds.com - allows you to exchange traffic for being promoted (??)
myspace.com - yes, it still exists, i’m just as surprised as you
nibblebit.com - similar to tumblr with reblogs / likes / customizing of blogs
pinterest.ca - easy sharing and collecting, but has many issues with theft
swarmr.com - an exact tumblr clone down to the default images (??)
twitter.com - allows posting both text and photos in sets, allows retweets
geared towards writers and bloggers
archiveofourown.org - specializes in hosting fic, excellent tagging system
dreamwidth.org - a blogging site similar to livejournal or wordpress
fanfiction.net - another big name in fanfic posting
livejournal.com - technically an option, likely unsafe for LGBTQ peeps
mibba.com - for creative writers, centered around community feedback
quotev.com - decent website for original / fan fic and fandom quizzes
royalroad.com - hosts webnovels and other fanfic, nice dark theme
wattpad.com - modern pretty fic site with direct links to irl publishers
wordpress.com - old and well-established, often considered the default
geared towards artists and photographers
artstation.com - excellent website for posting professional art portfolios
behance.net - meant for professionals posting various visual media types
deviantart.com - huge community, allows posting art + sorting into folders
flickr.com - great community for photographers, can join groups
furaffinity.net - similar to DA but for furries, easy to display commish info
galleria.emotionflow.com - very similar to pixiv, with imo better tagging
instagram.com - photo and video posts, excellent tag search
newgrounds.com - an oldie but a goodie, allows a ton of media types
piczel.tv - allows both streaming and posting art / photosets to a gallery
pixiv.net - huge anime art community, allows livestreaming
vero.co - app only, similar to insta but with MUCH more privacy control
chat or forum based
aminoapps.com - community-based, has blogs + chat, custom themes
discordapp.com - great chat app, text + voice, can join infinite servers
reddit.com - literally a community for everything, SO MANY CAT PHOTOS
18+ only
bdsmlr.com - microblogging + social media for people into kink
blogr.xxx - a tumblr clone created specifically for sharing porn
fetlife.com - considered one of the biggest kink communities online
libertine.center - beautiful + modern site for posting irl nsfw and kink stuff
thefetlibrary.com - for posting of erotic stories, replaces bdsmlibrary
paid platforms
patreon.com - subscription-based access to many diff types of content
typepad.com - similar to wordpress but with reblogging and a dash
up-and-coming platforms
pillowfort.io - closed beta. should function almost identically to tumblr but with many many improvements
poizen.me - development alpha. gorgeous website for artists to post art AND track comms
this one’s still early in development but looks incredibly promising as a platform and super pretty to look at!! go snap up a username before all the good ones are taken! favouritism what’s that
qink.co - pre-alpha. 18+ only. plans to be a kink-oriented replacement for tumblr.
defunct platforms
(so people will stop telling me i forgot them)
jux.com - shut down in 2014 due to lack of funds
shoandtell.me - now redirects to someone’s personal blog
soup.io - more or less closed down this year due to GDPR issues
ways to save your current tumblr posts
use the wayback machine! you do have to archive each page of your blog individually but once you do all the content, including media, will be saved exactly as it was at the moment you archived it.
wordpress allows you to directly import whole tumblr blogs, and if i recall correctly it’s something both dreamwidth and pillowfort have said they are working on.
tumblthree is a great tool with a ton of functions including downloading whole blogs, only posts tagged with a certain tag, all the posts you’ve liked, etc. etc. along with being able to download every type of media hosted on tumblr (pictures, videos, audio, everything). it also has a proper GUI so no computer knowledge required beyond downloading and running programs!
if you have some knowledge of computers you can try this github solution which uses a python script to download your whole blog to your computer. even if you don’t know anything about programming or the command line they give a very good beginners tutorial on how to use it so you should still give it a shot!
if that’s still a little daunting you can try soarcodes’ tumblr post that also has a decent tutorial!
here’s another python script that should allow you to archive all the images from your blog or your likes, though it requires some knowledge of python and the command line or very very good google skills.
some notes
edit: please stop commenting on this post to self-promote your porn accounts on other sites. those replies / reblogs will be deleted or hidden.
please note that every site on this list will have pros and cons, and i haven’t listed them here since this post would be a mile long otherwise. please do your research before moving completely over to another site in case they have policies you disagree with.
also, because I see a lot of misinformed people ranting about this: deviantart does not own the art you post. some years ago hot topic stole a ton of art from DA and sold it on merchandise and people assumed that DA gave them permission to do it despite there being literally zero evidence for that claim. DA explictly states in their TOS that you retain copyright and sole license of the art you post.
and related, mastodon does not allow or condone CP or pedophilia. the people spreading this info are misinformed about what mastodon is. it is not an exact twitter clone; anyone anywhere can host a mastodon instance using their personal computer as a server, which means mastodon as a company can’t do jack shit to moderate them. what they DO is permanently block all users from every other instance from viewing or interacting with that instance, and add that instance to a publicly viewable list along with the reason for the block. please give their post about anti-abuse measures a read before making snap judgements.
post version 5.1, 2018-12-04 23:46 AST
