The great WordPress vs WP Engine kerfuffle
It seems that even the corner of the internet I’m an expert in is not free from drama, beef, and spats. For those out of the loop, Matt Mullenweg, the original creator and owner of the WordPress name* is upset at WP Engine, one of the largest WordPress hosting providers, for profiteering off the WordPress name and product without investing enough back. Matt thinks WP Engine’s investment should come in two forms: more contributions to the WordPress source code and paying WordPress / him a boat load of money. It’s a tricky subject but as the owner of a successful WordPress agency and a partner of WP Engine, it’s one that I feel able to weigh in on.
Are Matt’s grievances legitimate?
Open-source code is one of the best things about the software development industry. It’s essentially publically and freely available code, maintained by a community, for anyone to use. It’s a wonderful premise, one that other industries could benefit from too. I think it should be actively protected and contributed to both by individuals and corporations where possible.
The most entitled, narcissistic tech-bro award is an incredibly competitive field, but even so, his actions have stood out for the wrong reasons and have not helped his cause at all.
WordPress is open source, and although WP Engine has directly contributed back to the WordPress source code, as a company with revenues in the hundreds of millions, Matt thinks they should be contributing more. This is part of the open source ethos.
When it comes to the money, and the legal use of the WordPress name or WP initials, I don’t know the full ins-and-outs of the law, so can’t fully comment on that, however it does feel like this is not part of the open source ethos. It can’t be open source to one group and not another. WP Engine are able to use WordPress in the same way I am, and the same way you are – freely and without restriction.
It must also be said that the way Matt has aired his grievances has been cringy at best, threatening to the WordPress community at worst. The most entitled, narcissistic tech-bro award is an incredibly competitive field, but even so, his actions have stood out for the wrong reasons and have not helped his cause at all.
What about WP Engine?
In the early days of Jambi, I used AWS to host the websites I built. It was a solid platform, secure, reliable, and supported, but I was required to be the sole owner and manager of our servers. And then something happened: I got too busy. I wanted to find a hosting partner to help with the workload.
WP Engine seemed a creditable solution, and after speaking with good, approachable, WordPress-knowledgeable humans I decided WPE was the best choice for Jambi and our clients.
Migrating everything over from AWS to WP Engine was going to be a big job, organsing servers, managing people’s downtime fears, and accessing DNS records takes time and care. But I was sure it was the right choice. I can’t remember any specific issues that came up during the months-long migration project, but I do remember that when I did have questions I was able to get in touch with one of the aforementioned good humans at WP Engine almost instantly, and they stayed with me until my questions were answered and issues fully resolved, every single time. For a (mostly) solo business owner it was incredible to know that someone had my back, that actually I could reach out to someone reliable, and not have it placed squarely and exclusively on my shoulders.
WP Engine is not cheap. Do I care though? Not at all. I have used and paid for online services for a long old time now, and WP Engine comfortably ranks near the very top in terms of service delivered
Other things I’ve noticed since moving to WP Engine:
- The service, both technical and customer, has continued to be excellent. They did not get Jambi on board, our sites migrated, and then forget about us. I got a call from our account manager last week, just to check in with how things are going, even when this drama is no doubt having a reasonable impact on his day-to-day availability
- I cannot remember a single outage. Not one. I’ve honestly been sat here at the Science Park for a while trying to remember even a momentary blip to just one site, but I can’t. Sites perform objectively better on WP Engine than other hosting solutions I’ve worked with as well
- I’ve added some extra services to our WP Engine account, all of which has performed flawlessly
- I haven’t worried about needing to manage the figurative nuts and bolts of servers at all. No package updates, checking memory allocation, or firewall rules. Bliss. Instead I’ve ploughed that time into things my clients actually care about
WP Engine is not cheap. Do I care though? Not at all. I have used and paid for online services for a long old time now, and WP Engine comfortably ranks near the very top in terms of service delivered. To suggest that WP Engine doesn’t provide its own service and is purely profiteering off the WordPress name and product is false, misleading, and potentially damaging.
What happens next?
Ideally this all blows over soon. Law suits have been filed, tweets have been posted, and, most weirdly, checkboxes have been coded. But it’ll get resolved in one way or another, likely by legal teams and not software engineers.
Online technologies owe a great deal to open source licenses, and without them, many would cease to exist. Open source code is a pillar of modern technology. It is, in all likelihood, impossible to remove without seeing the world crumble shortly thereafter. WordPress vs WP Engine is a high profile example of one party trying to unstitch that fabric but I believe it to be futile. I take great comfort in finding something in open source that is both built on collaboration, the sharing of ideas and technological development, and that is, in all likelihood, unshakeable.
*kinda – it’s a bit complicated but for now lets just say he owns the WordPress name