Automattic vs WP Engine: What could it mean for customers and developers?

One of the underappreciated tech stories of 2024 is the ongoing battle between Automattic and WP Engine. It's the kind of old school internet mess that used to happen regularly in the heyday of blogging, but with about a billion dollars and a quarter of the internet's websites involved.

The whole debacle, of course, raises questions about open source communities and what, if anything, corporations owe to the open source communities whose work they profit from.

About the Players: Automattic and WP Engine

Automattic is the leading corporate contributor to WordPress, the open source project. It's also the company behind WordPress.com and the managed WordPress hosting service Pressable. Automattic, Inc. was founded by a co-founder of the WordPress project. In terms of market share, mindshare, and revenue, it's the 800-pound gorilla in the WordPress space.

WP Engine is the other 800-pound gorilla in the WordPress space. They host thousands of WordPress sites (including two of my current clients), and maintain several popular plugins, including Advanced Custom Fields. What they don't do: make anywhere near Automattic's level of contributions to WordPress software.

Here's where I disclose that Webinista, Inc. is part of WP Engine's Agency Partner Program, but the program does not contribute to revenue.

A Spicy Talk and the Grand Forking

It all started when Automattic asked for 8 percent of WP Engine's monthly gross revenue to either be paid to Automattic, committed to the salaries of WP Engine employees to contribute code to WordPress' core, or a combinaiton of the two. Automattic framed this as a Trademark Licensing Agreement (PDF file). WP Engine did not like the terms. (Gross revenue is sales revenue before a company pays out wages, rent/mortgage payments, taxes, and so forth.)

The dispute bubbled over in September of 2024 when Matt Mullenweg gave a talk at WordCamp US titled WordPress vs WP Engine. He then followed up with post to the WordPress project's blog: WP Engine is not WordPress.

WP Engine responded with a cease and desist letter (PDF file).

It escalated a few days later when Automattic banned WP Engine from WordPress.org and then created a free fork of Advanced Custom Fields — a lucrative plugin for WP Engine.

In between, 159 Automattic employees — 8.4 percent, most of whom worked on WordPress core — accepted an Alignment Offer to leave the company because they disagreed with Mullenweg's handling of this dispute. The Verge has a more detailed rundown of the controversy.

A preliminary injunction on December 10th restored WP Engine's access. But the whole thing has left a bad taste in the mouths of some WordPress community members(https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/10/court-orders-mullenweg-and-automattic-to-restore-wp-engines-access-to-wordpress-org/){:rel="noopener"}.

What Does This Mean for Me, A WordPress User?

Short answer: not much right now.

WordPress, the project, should be fine in both the near term. There's a robust community of developers involved in the project. Automattic is not the only company that contributes to core. It's entirely possible that some departed Automattic employees will continue to contribute to the project — assuming Mullenweg doesn't do something to shut them out.

Another question worth asking: was this a stealth layoff for Automattic? Demanding 8 percent of gross revenue from WP Engine, and offering buyouts to employees not once but twice seem like actions a company takes when business has slowed. This is more of a concern if you use WordPress.com or Pressable. Cutting headcount can certainly improve a corporation's financial standing, but could also result in degraded service for customers. Keep an eye on whether Automattic announces more departures or changes to service and pricing in 2025.

What Does This Mean for Me, A Plugin or Theme Developer?

Automattic has demonstrated a willingness to undercut your product if you run afoul of its founder. Plugins hosted on WordPress.org must use the GNU General Public License v2 license — by default, you're granting permission to Automattic (or anyone else) to fork your plugin. Unlike other forkers, however, Automattic can also take over your WordPress.org URL and create a whole new product based on your code. No other company has that much control over the ecosystem.

A few plugin developers have pulled their plugins from the WordPress.org repository in response.

That said, most plugin and theme developers are not direct competitors to Automattic, and are at low risk of feeling this wrath. You should, however, take this as a reminder to develop your own distribution and promotion channels if you haven't already.

Should you leave WP Engine if you are a current customer?

Maybe. Let me try to add some nuance.

WP Engine uses a version of WordPress that's been tailored to its service. Revisions are disabled by default. WP Engine inserts its own dashboard into WordPress. It operates similarly to a self-hosted WordPress site, but it isn't the same. That's the managed part of managed WordPress hosting.

Now, this is neither good nor bad, as long as WP Engine, Automattic, and the WordPress Foundation remain on good terms. As we've seen, however, Automattic has the willingness and technical ability to push companies out of the ecosystem. That presents more uncertainty than any end user should have to think about.

There's also an ethical reason to consider. WP Engine makes money from a product they marginally help build. Improvements or changes they make to WordPress are not always contributed back to the WordPress project. In that regard, they're not the best community members. If you believe in WordPress' open source philosophy to give at least as much as you take, you may want to switch as a small-P political action.

If you're concerned about this, let's discuss options for WordPress hosting or other publishing tools: projects@webinista.com.