The WordPress vs WP Engine Beef

A Trademark Battle Shakes the Ecosystem🔗

There’s been an unusual amount of drama in WordPress world this week. A recent dispute between WP Engine, a prominent managed WordPress hosting provider, and the open-source WordPress project, spearheaded by Automattic's CEO Matt Mullenweg, a core maintainer, has disrupted over a million sites hosted on WP Engine.

The drama between WP Engine and WordPress began over trademark disputes but quickly evolved into a much larger conflict. The dispute escalated when Mullenweg publicly criticized WP Engine during WordCamp, accusing them of benefiting from the WordPress ecosystem without adequately supporting it. This accusation was followed by WP Engine receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Automattic, which claimed trademark infringement. WP Engine responded with its own legal action​. Things continued to worsen this week as Mullenweg blocked WP Engine’s free access to WordPress.org’s free resources, disabling millions of WP Engine-hosted sites from being able to automatically update their plugins and themes.

Mullenweg’s Move🔗

While from Mullenweg’s point of view, WP Engine has been unfairly commercializing WordPress’s free core functionality without contributing to the open-source project, others have criticized Mullenweg’s actions as harmful to the WordPress ecosystem as a whole.

The situation has left thousands of WordPress developers frustrated and uneasy, with many considering forking WP or moving onto a new CMS entirely. A large portion of the WordPress community is now perceiving WordPress as losing its open-source values, as Mullenweg’s aggressive actions seem to prioritize business interests over community well-being.

Considering Alternatives?🔗

If you’re affected by the recent WordPress drama and are considering alternatives, we recommend Sanity. It’s a headless CMS that offers flexibility, scalability, and a developer-friendly environment. Unlike WordPress, Sanity is API-driven, allowing developers to focus on building structured content and delivering it across multiple platforms without being tied to a monolithic system. To learn more about the differences between WordPress and Sanity, you can read our comparison.

If you’re ready to move on from WordPress and try out Sanity, start with Sanity Press. It’s the fastest way to get up and running with Sanity and is being updated each week with new features and themes to help you bootstrap an SEO-friendly editable site in minutes.