Key Takeaway: WordPress will be around for the foreseeable future. While there might be a viable alternative in five to ten years time, there is no need to worry and if you ever need to move out of WordPress, there are great alternatives.
What Happened Between Matt and WP Engine?
And it just happened on 20th September 2024 at WordCamp US. Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, came on stage and singled out WP Engine’s contribution to WordPress. As similar-sized companies doing half a billion dollars of revenue yearly, Automattic’s contribution to the WordPress project dwarves WP Engine’s (or WPE for short).
As you can expect, things went south pretty quickly. WP Engine issued a cease-and-desist letter, and Automattic followed suit. Matt has since appeared in interviews, giving us a clearer picture of what happened behind the abrupt announcement at WordCamp US.
WP Engine made it worse by saying Automattic demanded 8% of WP Engine’s revenue (backup copy of WP Engine’s letter). But is this true?
In the YouTube video by PrimeTime above, Matt clarified that he had contacted WP Engine over the years, but nothing was done (starting from the 17:45 mark). Furthermore, it is not sustainable for Automattic to keep funding WordPress.org’s servers and have a competitor take what they want for free, even more so as WP Engine has lawyered up.
Read: Is WordPress Free?
How will this pan out? It depends on whether both parties can resolve. Going to court will not help WordPress, WP Engine, nor Automattic, as the end user will be caught in between. It also doesn’t make sense for WP Engine to fork WordPress.
While WP Engine isn’t obligated to give back to WordPress, they should. We should encourage and apply social pressure for WP Engine to contribute, as calling them out is a disastrous PR campaign. Brian Coord says this well in his article.
Update (31/10/2024): WP Engine and Automattic have gone to court
Will the Court Case Affect You?
I doubt the court case will affect you—at least not in the near future. In the long term, though, it might affect both WP Engine and Automattic if they do not resolve the issue. CIOs will hesitate to trust either brand if the matter isn’t resolved quickly.
Is it Easy to Fork WordPress?
Forking the code is the easy part. Maintaining WordPress’ code base and features updated takes a lot of resources. I have spoken to companies that contribute to WordPress and found out that Automattic has been doing a lot of the work for free.
Would a backer with such resources back the fork of WordPress? Even if they do, will they willingly invest the resources for years without financial incentives? I believe it is hard
What are Alternatives to WordPress?
The usual alternatives to WordPress depend very much on your needs and technical capabilities. If all you need is a simple brochure site, your needs differ significantly from someone who needs an affiliate site. In the same way, larger businesses, publicly listed companies, and conglomerates will need more than just a simple brochure site.
The beauty of WordPress is its modularity and the breadth of plugins available. That’s why it is so hard to replace WordPress. You can fork the code, but can you replicate the ecosystem?
Some great alternatives to WordPress are
- Brizy Cloud – If you need a simple brochure site, Brizy is simple enough and doesn’t require maintenance
- Webflow – If design is your thing and you don’t mind limited 3rd party extensions
- Craft CMS – If you don’t mind a paid CMS with a subscription, Craft CMS allows you to build powerful sites
- Drupal – A powerful alternative to WordPress, often used in enterprise websites
