If you were to tell me that Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, will start a war with WP Engine that would be so big, that millions of website owners will start reconsidering if the CMS platform is actually worth investing time and resources, I’d say there’s no chance. Unfortunately, I’d be wrong.
In case you haven’t heard about the case with Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, I’ll do my best to explain what’s been happening for the last few months. If you’re a user looking at using WordPress for their next project, or even a web developer like myself wondering if you should start looking for alternatives, you’re in the right place – I think.
Who’s Matt Mullenweg?
Matt Mullenweg is the co-founder of WordPress and the CEO of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and WordPress.org, WooCommerce, Pocket Casts, Simplenote, Tumblr, Day One, and Longreads, among others. He’s the guy who created the now multi-million company that is responsible and powers nearly half of the web – and he started back when he was only 19 years old.
There are an unspeakable number of businesses that currently using WordPress, including many online stores, company websites, platforms, and so much more. Mullenweg is responsible for making the best and right decisions for WordPress – and basically all the other software Automattic owns – and helps them get improved, run smoothly, and help individuals and businesses in some way.
Although I’ve been using WordPress for many years, I don’t remember reading much about Mullenweg and his background, so I started digging a bit. First, I’ve watched a few interviews with him, listened to a couple of podcast episodes, and then read a few articles to get even more information. With that being said, he seems like a very calm and relaxed individual who looks like a really nice guy to hang out with. Unfortunately, nowadays he found himself in a very bad spot within the WordPress community for a war that we’ll be talking about in a bit.
What is WP Engine?
WP Engine is an American hosting company created by Jason Cohen and Ben Metcalfe back in 2010 and has been one of the biggest and most popular hosting providers for WordPress for many years now. Apart from providing some of the most standard and crucial hosting options and features, WP Engine also has a headless platform solution, and they’re ideal for WooCommerce store owners looking for a safe, stable, and fast hosting solution for their e-commerce sites.
The company is also well-known within the WordPress community, thanks to creating and providing many useful plugins that many already use, including popular names such as Advanced Custom Fields, WP Migrate, WP Offload Media, and Better Search Replace, among others. Themes are also included, as WP Engine is associated with the popular Genesis Framework and the StudioPress themes, and they also created the Frost Theme, which is a block-based theme with lots of patterns, including hero and portfolio sections, call-to-action buttons, and more.
I have already talked about WP Engine in my previous blog post about the best WordPress hosting providers I’ve used in the last few years, and it surely gets a place on the list.
Why did Matt Mullenweg start a war against WP Engine?
Back in mid-September 2024, Matt Mullenweg, criticized WP Engine in a blog post, calling it a “cancer to WordPress” for profiteering without contributing enough to the open-source project. He also accused the company of trademark infringement, claiming that their use of the “WP” brand confused customers into thinking it was officially associated with WordPress.
WP Engine responded with a cease-and-desist letter, basically saying that their use of the WordPress trademark was covered under fair use. Why all that? Because Automattic wanted 8 percent of WP Engine’s revenue every month – you can read more about it on The Verge.
Mullenweg then went and made some serious changes, including banning WP Engine from accessing WordPress.org resources, taking over their ACF plugin, adding a box that made WordPress users approve that they weren’t affiliated with WP Engine’s side, and even creating a tracker website from which people could see how many websites were leaving WP Engine for other hosting providers.
Things started getting even “hotter” when WP Engine declined Mullenweg’s demand to contribute a significant financial amount to his open-source project, and then things took a turn for the worse. Both parties have filed lawsuits against each other, and WP Engine accused Automattic and Mullenweg of extortion, interference with operations, and abuse of power. A federal judge granted WP Engine a preliminary injunction to block Mullenweg’s attacks against WP Engine.
And here’s what Mullenweg posted on X about how he felt about how things turned out:
“I’m disgusted and sickened by being legally forced to provide free labor and services to @wpengine, a dangerous precedent that should chill every open source maintainer. While I disagree with the court’s decision, I’ve fully complied with its order. You can see most changes on the site. They have access to ACF slug but haven’t changed it… must not have been the emergency they claimed.”
Source: Matt Mullenweg on X.com
Despite Mullenweg’s compliance, he did point out that the company had yet to change the plugin’s slug, basically questioning their claim for urgency. Once the ACF team reclaimed it, they announced it on X:
“We’re pleased to share that our team has had account access restored on WordPress dot org along with control of the ACF plugin repo. This means all ACF users can rest assured that the ACF team you trust is once again maintaining the plugin. There’s no action required if you have installed ACF directly from the ACF website or you are an ACF PRO user.”
Source: ACF on X.com
But that wasn’t the end for Mullenweg though, as he later went and deactivated five other people’s accounts, including Heather Burns, Morten Rand-Hendriksen, and Sé Reed. Now, in case you haven’t heard, Reed is the president and CEO of WP Community Collective, and here’s what he posted on X after the deactivation of his account:
Rand-Handriksen also replied on BlueSky about the situation:
The latest news about the war between Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine is currently on track, and Mullenweg has stated on X that the lawsuits could last for years and potentially lead to the closure of WordPress.org – and that’s a very, very bold statement to millions of people who are currently using he’s CMS platform.
The lawsuits will go years and could potentially bankrupt me or force the closure of WordPress.org. It also takes a huge amount of time — there is no “lawyers work on that.”
Source: Matt Mullenweg on X
Mullenweg tends to reply both on X and Reddit, and he surely likes to write about what’s going on on his personal blog, so make sure to check those sources if you want to find his latest replies, announcements, etc.
The instability caused within the WordPress community
These kinds of wars usually tend to do more harm to smaller companies and individuals rather than the millionaires who own them. When it comes to the WordPress community, many people are currently asking if they should keep using the CMS platform or start looking for alternatives, and that’s not only from website owners but also from web developers and agencies alike.
Take Michael Willman as an example, who’s the CEO of Redev and the moderator of r/WPDrama, and he’s filling a court Motion to Intervene (filed in the WP Engine lawsuit) alleging that Mullenweg banned him and caused him to lose two clients – you can read more about the case on the Search Engine Journal, where he offered an explanation. You can also find and read online the Motion To Intervene legal document.
When it comes to the overall community, well, let’s just say that things aren’t looking that great for Mullenweg, with many criticizing his opinions and the way he handles things. There are hundreds upon hundreds of posts that you can read on social media platforms, forums, and other online communities about how the community actually feels about.
Unfortunately, this battle has already hit quite a few web developers, hosting providers, and other professionals who work with WordPress. From losing new clients to having to migrate your old ones to other CMS platforms if they don’t feel like there’s a future with WordPress, things are getting harder and harder as Matt’s and WP Engine’s drama continues.
As for me, I don’t think that WordPress will die that easily, and if Matt chooses to close WordPress.org, I guess we’ll see a fork getting released way sooner than expected. There’s also ClassicPress, which is a WordPress fork, but I kinda like Gutenberg, so I’m not looking at going back to the classic editor. Maybe we’ll see a fork from WP Engine, which would be fun to watch, but at the expense of other hosting providers also using it.
Like a Redditor said, “How long until we have a fork of WordPress that’s owned by the Linux Foundation?”. Now THAT would be a great and interesting idea.
Looking at all the WordPress alternatives
If you don’t mind not having Gutenberg as your editor, then ClassicPress is a great option. For bloggers who don’t want anything more than writing, Ghost is a great option that I really liked during my last tests. More extreme solutions include Drupal, of course, which is currently one of the best alternatives (if not the best for many).
Other than that, you can choose to go with all-in-one platforms, including Squarespace and Wix, or even try out AI-generated tools such as the one that Hostinger currently provides (I’ve tested it and it does an excellent job of creating basic websites within minutes).
There are many other alternatives, some designed with other needs in mind, but I’ll be covering them in an upcoming article, as I’m currently testing them one by one and looking at their best features, biggest disadvantages, and so on.
Should you migrate your site away from WPEngine?
Well, who am I to say? You can do whatever you want. If I had a website hosted in WP Engine (which I don’t), I wouldn’t migrate just because Mullenweg started a battle with them. Also, apart from their hosting plans – which I personally find a bit expensive, and thus why I haven’t used them – some of my clients are very happy with WP Engine’s servers, and I don’t find any reason to migrate them.
Yes, Mulleweng did block WP Engine from using the WordPress.org resources, and he also took over one of their plugins, but both of those situations were resolved in court. And yes, we may end up seeing WordPress.org closing, but something tells me that, until then, hosting companies, agencies, and individuals (including the whole community) will find a great alternative, or even fork the thing.
To close things up, WP Engine may be a bit expensive for my taste, but they do provide fully managed WordPress solutions, a global CDN service, daily and on-demand backups, and they’re pretty much known in the community for contributing with many plugins and third-party tools, including Local, the best tool for quickly building, testing, and deploying WP installations.
What’s next for WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, and WP Engine?
Both parties have many options when it comes to the war they’re fighting. WP Engine won the first battle, and I don’t see why stopping now. Other battles will follow, and depending on how far both parties want the case to go, the number of times they’ll both be in court may increase significantly.
It’s surely a complex situation with both sides feeling strongly about their positions. Should Mullenweg retire from the project? Do you think a fork is needed? And where do you currently build your websites? Maybe he’s [Mullenweg] right? Should companies and other hosting providers invest more money in WordPress.org? After all, they do use it to earn, so why not give back a percentage of their earnings?
What are your thoughts on this? Let me know in the comments section down below.
Uh, oh! Legal stuff! Yikes.. Yet important! Affiliate Links Disclaimer: Many of the links on my articles are affiliate links. That means if you click on one and make a purchase, I might earn a small commission, and I'll keep doing what I'm doing, reviewing everything with absolute honesty. Sounds good? Good.
That’s a great piece here.
I think that for WordPress.org to keep moving, WP hosting providers and those that make use of the CMS’s business infrastructure should comply by giving a certain percentage to the CMS.
Not doing that looks so self-centered and an act of wickedness.
Don’t they know WordPress needs money to remain in business?