The more I use Tumblr, the more I realize how ill suited it is for blogging. It feels more like a long form version of Twitter than blogging software.
This is evidenced by how the ‘Post’ buttons have you choose between Text, Image, Video, etc. A blog post would usually comprise of all of these elements combined.
Not designed for Long form posts
Wanna create a post with an embedded youtube video? You cant. Wanna create a post with lots of images? You can’t, because in a 'text’ post, Tumblr will crop does images down to almost invisible sizes. Features like clicking on an image to show a larger version are non existent.
Even typographical elements like Headlines are non-existent from Text posts. You can directly edit the html/markdown to insert a h2 tag, but none of the default Tumblr themes will style it properly and the spacing around the heading will be wonky.
What other options are out there?
Since Tumblr is not a blogging platform per se, what other options are out there:
Wordpress
Too complex compared to alternatives. More for building websites than blogging.
Blogger
Ha. We are in 2014 now.
Medium
This seems nice but completely takes away your identity.
Ghost
Ghost seems to be the best choice currently. It looks beautiful and extremely simple to use. Is designed for long form writing. High profile bloggers like Coding Horror are using it. That said, the hosted version is paid. I still prefer this to the rest of the options.