This is a year-end review of how the sites Furbitron monitors fared in 2021, and how that compares to past years.

tl;dr: 2021 was the first year ever where FurAffinity did not have year-on-year growth. 2021 was the best year ever for e621. For the other sites Furbitron monitors, their best years were around 5 to 7 years ago.

tl;dr but as a table:

Site          Submission IDs in 2021
FurAffinity   5,358,000
e621            546,000
SoFurry         134,100
Weasyl          109,100
FurryNetwork     40,700
Furiffic         19,500

(submission ID counts are rounded)

Furbitron itself

Work started on Furbitron back in late April, but then a bunch of real life happened. Work resumed in earnest in late September, and continued apace through the public launch on November 22.

Since then, there have been bug fixes both large and small, and a little work for the year-end rollover. There have been visitors from all over the world; some of them are even humans!

FurAffinity

2021 was the first year ever where FurAffinity did not have year-on-year growth; it ended 2021 with about 5,358,000 submission IDs, as compared to 5,499,000 for 2020. It was a close race - through about mid-August, 2021 was still leading 2020 - but the 2021 rate slowed down slightly from then on.

Before 2021, FurAffinity had year-on-year growth every year from 2005 to 2020. It launched in late 2005 and had about 12,000 submission IDs that year; 2006 was the first full year of operation, with about 320,600 submission IDs.

FurAffinity experienced a large jump in submission IDs in 2020 and 2021, compared to the previous few years - there were about 4.0 million submission IDs in 2018, 4.5 million in 2019, 5.5 million in 2020, and 5.4 million in 2021. It will be interesting to see if 2022 also reaches 5+ million submissions.

Furiffic

Furiffic had about 19,500 submission IDs in 2021. This was an improvement over 2020 (16,800) and 2019 (about 16,600 through late November), but lower than the years before that.

Furiffic's best year ever was 2016, with about 51,600 submission IDs. It launched in spring 2013 and had about 2,100 submission IDs that year; 2014 was the first full year of operation, with about 3,900 submission IDs through late November.

(Because of the way Furiffic's history browsing works, it is not always easy for Furbitron to find submissions that were made on or near December 31 of each year. This is why some of the lines on the year-on-year graph do not extend all the way through December.)

FurryNetwork

FurryNetwork had about 40,700 submission IDs in 2021. This continued the decline from 2020 (52,500) and 2019 (83,900).

FurryNetwork's best year ever was 2016, with about 1,063,000 submission IDs. It launched in summer 2015 and had about 286,800 submission IDs that year. 2021 was the slowest full year for FurryNetwork.

SoFurry

SoFurry had about 134,100 submission IDs in 2021. This was lower than 2020 (139,300), but better than 2019 (126,800).

SoFurry's best year ever was 2017, with about 166,700 submission IDs. It launched in spring 2006 and had about 6,700 submission IDs that year; 2007 was the first full year of operation, with about 23,900 submission IDs.

Weasyl

Weasyl had about 109,100 submission IDs in 2021. This continued the decline from 2020 (121,100) and 2019 (134,900).

Weasyl's best year ever was 2014, with about 526,000 submission IDs. It launched in fall 2011 and had about 40 submission IDs that year; 2012 was the first full year of operation, with about 77,200 submission IDs. 2021 was the slowest full year for Weasyl since 2012.

e621

2021 was the best year ever for e621, with about 546,000 submission IDs.

e621 also experienced a large jump in submission IDs in 2020 and 2021, compared to the previous few years - there were about 338,000 submission IDs in 2018, 350,000 in 2019, 451,000 in 2020, and 546,000 in 2021.

e621 had year-on-year growth every year from 2008 to 2021. It launched in spring 2007 and had about 14,100 submission IDs that year; 2008 was the first full year of operation, with about 10,700 submission IDs.

Notes and disclaimers

The submission ID counts in this post have been rounded off. They should be accurate to within 1% or so.

The owners of the various sites can directly query their site's database, so they may publish slightly different numbers than are found here.

The numbers here come from Furbitron's monitoring of the sites listed. The historical data was mostly gathered from the sites in September 2021. e621 provides a dump of their site database, so the historical data for e621 came from that dump in September 2021. Since then, Furbitron has done "live" monitoring of each site, once a day.

Thanks!

Furbitron
https://furbitron.com/