WordPress Founder Calls WP Engine a 'Cancer To WordPress' and Urges Community To Switch Providers

Automattic CEO and WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg unleashed a scathing attack on a rival firm this week, calling WP Engine -- a managed WordPress hosting provider that has raised nearly $300 million in funding over its 14-year history -- a "cancer to WordPress." From a report: Mullenweg criticized the company -- which has been commercializing the open source WordPress project since 2010 -- for profiteering without giving much back, while also disabling key features that make WordPress such a powerful platform in the first place.

[...] But speaking last week at WordCamp US 2024, a WordPress-focused conference held in Portland, Oregon, Mullenweg pulled no punches in his criticism of WP Engine. Taking to the stage, Mullenweg read out a post he had just published to his personal blog, where he points to the distinct "five for the future" investment pledges made by Automattic and WP Engine to contribute resources to support the sustained growth of WordPress, with Automattic contributing 3,900 hours per week, an WP Engine contributing just 40 hours.

While he acknowledged that these figures are just a "proxy," and might not be perfectly accurate, Mullenweg said that this disparity in contributions is notable, as both Automattic and WP Engine "are roughly the same size, with revenue in the ballpark of half-a-billion [dollars]." [...] Mullenweg published a follow up blog post, where he calls WP Engine a "cancer" to WordPress. "It's important to remember that unchecked, cancer will spread," he wrote. "WP Engine is setting a poor standard that others may look at and think is ok to replicate."

It's just business and they are outcompeted...

[DigitalCH]

WP engine is just running a better business. Sucks when someone outcompetes you in a tech you built, and it is unfortunate they aren't giving back, but this is a core open source concept and whining about it isn't a great look.

Re:

[Kurrelgyre]

Have you a better suggestion?

If your entire business is to manage a piece of OSS for customers and you dedicate a total of *one* developer to
interacting with upstream, I'd question how good your support actually is.

Re:

[xevioso]

We use Pantheon at the enterprise level, and love it. Service is great, they understand Wordpress really well, and we have had no complaints since we converted a large site running Drupal to WP a few years ago. They were helpful every step of the way. We looked at WP Engine before we switched, and as I recall we had a lot of the same concerns with that platform mentioned in this article.

Re:

[Luthair]

Think about how many hosting providers existed in the early 2000s providing LAMP stacks to users. A lot of VCs act like the current cloud provider situation is new, but this business model has existed since the beginning.

Re:

[lsllll]

It may not be in good faith, but like the OP said, this is the nature of OSS. If I were WP Engine, however, I'd be playing nicer just because if WP wanted to, they could make life a living hell for me by making changes in ways that'd disrupt my business. Hint hint, Mullenweg!

"WP Engine is setting a poor standard

[king*jojo]

that others may look at and think is ok to replicate."

One could say that about a lot of things that are currently extremely popular and are pumping out more money than an oil gusher. Just saying

Open source is Open Source

[SmaryJerry]

He is angry that he open sourced his software and another company is using/selling the software better. He got all the benefits of open source, having others find/fix bugs and add features, but is now mad that other companies are using it for free. Can't have your cake and eat it too.