The drama of WordPress vs. WP Engine, explained

The world of WordPress, one of the most popular technologies for creating and hosting websites, is going through a very heated controversy. The underlying issue is the battle between WordPress founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, which hosts websites built on WordPress.

WordPress technology is open source and free, and it powers a large portion of the internet – about 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 “cancer for WordPress.” He criticized the host for disabling users’ ability to see and track revision history for each post. Mullenweg believes this feature is at the “core of the user promise to protect your data” and said WP Engine disables it by default to save money.

He also called out WP Engine investor Silver Lake and said that he was not contributing enough to the open source project and that WP Engine’s use of the “WP” brand confused customers into thinking it was part of WordPress.

The legal battle

In response, WP Engine sent a cease and desist letter to Mullenweg and Automattic to retract their comments. It also said that the use of the WordPress trademark was covered by fair use.

The company claimed that Mullenweg said he would take a “scorched-earth nuclear approach” against WP Engine if it did not agree to pay “a significant percentage of its revenue for a WordPress brand license.”

In response, Automattic sent their own cease and desist letter to WP Engine saying they did violated the WordPress and WooCommerce trademark usage guidelines.

The WordPress Foundation also changed its Trademark Policy page and called out WP Engine, claiming the hosting service had misled users.

“The abbreviation ‘WP’ is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please do not use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think that WP Engine is the “WordPress Engine” and is officially associated with WordPress, which it is not. They have not donated even once to the WordPress Foundation despite making billions in revenue off of WordPress,” the updated page reads.

WP engine ban, impact on community and trademark fight

Mullenweg then banned WP Engine from accessing WordPress.org resources. While things like plugins and themes are open source licensed, providers like WP Engine have to run a service to fetch them, which is not covered by the open source license.

The story continues

This broke a lot of websites and prevented them from updating plugins and themes. It also left some of them open to security attacks. The community was not happy with this approach of leaving small sites helpless.

In response to the incident, WP Engine said in a post that Mullenweg misused his control of WordPress to interfere with WP Engine customers’ access to WordPress.org.

“Matt Mullenweg’s unprecedented and unjustified action interferes with the normal functioning of the entire WordPress ecosystem, impacting not only WP Engine and our customers, but all WordPress plugin developers and open source users who depend on WP Engine tools like ACF,” said WP Engine.

Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic, has misused his control of WordPress to interfere with WP Engine customers’ access to https://t.co/ZpKb9q4jPh, asserting that he did so because WP Engine filed litigation against https://t.co/erlNmkIol2. This simply is not true. Our Cease &…

— WP Engine (@wpengine) September 26, 2024

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

Mullenweg wrote a blog post clarifying that the fight is only against WP Engine for trademarks. He said that Automattic has been trying to work out a trademark licensing agreement for a long time, but WP Engine’s only response has been to “sit us down.”

The WordPress community and other projects believe this could happen to them as well and want clarification from Automattic, which has an exclusive license to the WordPress trademark. The community is also asking for clear guidance on how they can and cannot use “WordPress”.

The WordPress Foundation, which owns the trademark, has also filed for “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress” trademarks. Developers and vendors are concerned that if these trademarks are granted, they could be used against them.

Developers have expressed concern about relying on commercial open source products related to WordPress, especially when their access can disappear quickly.

The founder of the open-source content management system Ghost, John O’Nolan, also weighed in on the issue and criticized WordPress’ one-person control.

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