The WordPress vs. WP Engine drama, explained

This story has been continually updated with additional details as the story develops. We will continue to do so as long as the case and dispute continue.

The world of WordPress, one of the most popular technologies for building and hosting websites, is currently experiencing a very heated controversy. The core issue is the battle between WordPress founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, which hosts WordPress-based websites.

WordPress technology is open source and free and makes up a large portion of the internet – around 40% of websites. Websites can host their own WordPress instance or use a solution provider like Automattic or WP Engine for a plug-and-play solution.

In mid-September, Mullenweg wrote a blog post in which he called WP Engine a “cancer on WordPress.” He criticized the host for denying users the ability to view and track revision history for each post. Mullenweg believes this feature represents the “core of the user promise to protect your data” and said WP Engine disables it by default to save money.

He also took aim at WP Engine investor Silver Lake, saying it was not contributing enough to the open source project and that WP Engine’s use of the “WP” brand had misled customers into thinking it was a part of WordPress.

The legal dispute

In response, WP Engine sent a cease and desist letter to Mullenweg and Automattic to retract their comments. It also said that use of the WordPress brand falls under fair use.

The company claimed that Mullenweg stated he would take a “nuclear, scorched earth approach” against WP Engine unless it agreed to “pay a significant percentage of its revenue for a license to the WordPress brand.”

In response: Automattic sent its own Cease and desist letter to WP Engine stating that this is the case violate the WordPress and WooCommerce trademark usage rules.

This has broken many websites and prevented them from doing so Updating plugins and themes. This also left some of them vulnerable to security attacks. The community was not happy with this approach of leaving small websites helpless.

On September 27, WordPress.org temporarily lifted the banallowing WP Engine to access resources until October 1st.

Mullenweg wrote a blog post clarifying that the fight was only against WP Engine over trademark rights. He said Automattic had been trying to negotiate a trademark licensing deal for a long time, but WP Engine’s only response was to “go along with us.”

The WordPress community and other projects feel this could be happening to them too and want clarification from Automattic, which has an exclusive license to the WordPress brand. The community is also demanding clear guidelines on how they can and cannot use “WordPress”.

The WordPress Foundation, which owns the trademark, has also registered the “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress” trademarks. Developers and providers fear that these trademarks could be used against them if granted.

developers have expressed concerns about reliance on commercial open source products related to WordPress, especially when access to them can be quickly lost.

“The web needs more independent organizations and more diversity. 40% of the web and 80% of the CMS market should not be controlled by one individual,” he said an X contribution.

On October 9, the creator of the Ruby on Rails web app development framework, David Heinemeier Hansson, said that Automattic was violating the principles of open source software by asking WP Engine to pay 8% of its revenue.

“Automattic is completely wrong and the potential harm to the open source world goes far beyond WordPress. “Don’t let the drama or its characters distract you from this threat,” he said in a blog post.

On September 30, a day before the WordPress.org deadline for banning WP Engine, the hosting company updated its website footer to clarify that it is not directly affiliated with the WordPress Foundation or the WordPress industry owns.

“WP Engine is a proud member and supporter of the WordPress® user community. The WordPress® trademark is the intellectual property of the WordPress Foundation and the Woo® and WooCommerce® trademarks are the intellectual property of WooCommerce, Inc. Use of the names WordPress®, Woo® and WooCommerce® on this website is for identification purposes only and does not constitute endorsement the WordPress Foundation or WooCommerce, Inc. WP Engine is not endorsed by, owned by, or affiliated with the WordPress Foundation or WooCommerce, Inc., the updated description on the site states.

The company also changed the names of its plans from “Essential WordPress,” “Core WordPress,” and “Enterprise WordPress” to “Essential,” “Core,” and “Enterprise.”

WP Engine said in a statement that it changed these terms to challenge Automattic’s claims.

“We, like the rest of the WordPress community, use the WordPress brand to describe our company. Automattic’s suggestion that WPE needs a license to do this is simply wrong and reflects a misunderstanding of trademark law. To address the alleged concerns, we have eliminated the few examples provided by Automattic in its September 23 announcement^approx Letter to us,” a company spokesperson told TechCrunch.

On October 1, the company posted on X that it had successfully implemented its own solution for updating plug-ins and themes.

WP Engine lawsuit and Automattic exodus

On October 3, WP Engine sued Automattic and Mullenweg for abuse of power in a California court. The hosting company also claimed that Automattic and Mullenweg failed to live up to their promises to run WordPress open source projects without restrictions and to give developers the freedom to create, run, modify and redistribute the software.

“Matt Mullenweg’s conduct over the last ten days has exposed significant conflicts of interest and governance issues that, if left unchecked, threaten to destroy that trust. WP Engine has no choice but to pursue these claims to protect its employees, agency partners, customers and the broader WordPress community,” the company said in a statement to TechCrunch.

The lawsuit also mentions alleged texts from Mullenweg about the possible hiring of WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner. In a comment to Hacker News, Mullenweg said that Brunner wanted to become CEO of WordPress.org.

In response, Automattic described this case as unfounded.

“I stayed up last night reading WP Engine’s complaint, trying to find a reason for it somewhere. This is without merit and we look forward to the federal court reviewing their lawsuit,” the company’s legal representative, Neal Katyal, said in a blog post.

On the same day, 159 Automattic employees who disagreed with Mullenweg’s management and WordPress as a whole agreed to a severance package and left the company. Almost 80% of the people who left the company worked in Automattic’s ecosystem/WordPress department.

On October 8, WordPress announced that Mary Hubbard, previously the head of governance and experience at TikTok US, would step in as CEO. This post was previously held by Josepha Haden Chomphosy, who was among the 159 people who left Automattic. A day earlier, one of WP Engine’s engineers announced that he was moving to Automattic.

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