Tumblr has decided to pause its plan to transition to WordPress, which also means halting its integration into the fediverse. This information was revealed on the Decoder podcast by The Verge. Automattic, the parent company of Tumblr, had previously announced intentions to shift Tumblr’s backend to WordPress last year. Nevertheless, Automattic’s founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg mentioned on Decoder that the initiative is currently on hold as the company intends to concentrate on user-visible changes that users are requesting. Modifying a website’s backend is a considerable undertaking, but it is typically not something that most users are aware of.

This brief diversion from adopting WordPress might postpone Tumblr’s entry into the fediverse, a collection of interconnected publishing platforms designed to foster a decentralized social media ecosystem. This means that your followers, follows, and posts can transfer between platforms.

Tumblr’s transition to WordPress would have eased the integration into the fediverse, as WordPress offers an ActivityPub plug-in that links users to other platforms within the fediverse. That possibility is now no longer available. “That would’ve been a free way to get it,” Mullenweg informed Decoder. “And so that was one of the arguments for migrating everything to WordPress.”