Updated 9/26/2024
Article: Matt Mullenweg calls WP Engine a ‘cancer to WordPress’ and urges community to switch providers
We have know for a long time that WPEngine has been really good at marketing and not so good at providing a decent product.
WP Engine has a long history of bait-and-switch tactics with their customers. We have seen time and again when with just 7 days left before a contract renewal WPEngine will double or triple a hosting plan’s cost on a customer based on arcane metrics such as “you got more hits this month” or some other BS that they can never quantify. And when they do there is very little evidence to back it up.
And while WPEngine’s approach to plugin management is admirable by not allowing some junk plugins they still allow bloatware such as Yoast and spyware such as MonsterInsights.
Unfortunately, WPEngine has also purchased several popular plugins, such as Advanced Custom Fields, WP Migrate, WP Offload Media and WP Offload SES. While there are alternatives to these plugins, and programmatic approaches if you are a developer, one company holding such influence over an open source software initiative is not good for the community.
Then there is the chance that this whole thing is becoming a brouhaha because it is impacting WordPress’s commercial hosting services at wordpress.com. We have used the service and found it to be pretty OK. Except for the service-lock of “you must buy it for 2 years and no refunds”. You know what? A lot of things change over two years.
WPEngine has not been Mullenweg’s only target or criticism. According to the article he has also leveled criticism — and rightly so — against another web hosting cancer: GoDaddy, calling them, “a “parasitic company” and an “existential threat to WordPress’ future.”” Let’s not forget the disgusting commercials their CEO ran in the early 2000s.
Mullenweg followed up his comments with a post about WPEngine (recommended!). On the outset he writes:
It has to be said and repeated: WP Engine is not WordPress. My own mother was confused and thought WP Engine was an official thing. Their branding, marketing, advertising, and entire promise to customers is that they’re giving you WordPress, but they’re not. And they’re profiting off of the confusion.
Many moves by WordPress itself are starting to raise our eyebrows. While it is still the best and most intuitive content management system it is starting to become much more bland and trying to be Wix or SquareSpace. Drupal and Joomla have excelled in areas where WordPress is lagging. Drupal’s adoption of Symfony, for example, has brought an object oriented framework approach to the project. And Joomla has certainly gotten better over the past few versions. Bolt CMS is also making a splash.
It is good to see that someone is calling out WPEngine for what they are: great at marketing, terrible at caring for their customers.
More to add (2 days later):
Upon further investigation into this brouhaha it seems the only reason Matt is doing this is to start a beef with a WPEngine for not “paying their share” to the WordPress Foundation. It is becoming petty and may soon have a major impact on the WordPress community at large. This is a watershed moment for WordPress very similar to what happened with Mambo/Joomla! around 2005 where the software splintered and Mambo died whereas Joomla! took off, because it was open source.
Drupal went through its own issues when they (rightfully) decided to ditch the underlying spaghetti code and rewrite the entire thing on Symfony.
As a hosting provider, we want what is best for our customers. Petty disagreements to pay their piece of flesh doesn’t do anyone any good. As this is a power play to promote WordPress.com’s hosting packages (which are also watered down) this has no benefit to the WordPress nor open source community.
Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash