Throughout history, we have seen the powerful take control of everything they loved and wreck everything they didn’t. Almost all the influential rulers believed, everything is fair in love and war. Automattic & WP Engine are at war and nobody is enjoying it.
As the war continues to show its destruction, a new website emerges with the name WordPressEngineTracker that tracks how many of WP Engine clients have moved to another hosting provider. The site not only published all the domains that they have on WordPress but also gave access to all domains that are using WP Engine hosting at present. Automattic then confirms that it created the site. The fire erupted, engulfing the whole community again as no one seems to agree with it. Matt is under another row of criticism and disapprovals. The troops on popular forums call it doxing, which is searching or publishing private information with a malicious intent.
This soap opera of the two giants is getting more intense each day. It certainly is a Battle of Titans. As Matt Mullenweg claimed an 8% revenue from WP Engine for using their trademark “WordPress” and WP Engine refusing it saying that it is an open source application and everyone has an equal right to use it. Matt, however, claimed that WP Engine is not contributing enough to the community and it should be the active participants in giving back to the platform.
While the trademark debate continues, Matt has also declared that the domain WordPress.org is under his ownership not the WordPress foundation. The community is furious that it all started with the trademark violations then why now, Matt and Automattic is using WP Engine trademark on the tracking site, doing the same violation themselves. Note that Automattic is the for-profit wing of WordPress which manages wordpress.com that offers a score of services and addons to the WordPress community and it is owned by Matt Mullenweg who is also one of the three managing directors and controls major voting rights.
The question is, how malicious that is? The tracking website not only shows the number of sites defaulting from WP Engine, it also shows all the offers that are available for WP Engine customers. It is to facilitate them in selecting the alternative hosting and switch from the existing platform. Matt apparently believes that either never start a war, or once started, never fight half-heartedly. No regrets and it must be waged with the savage joy in defeating the enemy. The WordPress community has kept its stance on how negatively it impacts the whole system while hundreds of other sites like Kinsta, Siteground, Digital Ocean chose to do business. The keyword search Alternative to WP Engine is in top trends and all over the business world, a huge number of offers are emerging, claiming that they are the best alternative to the hosting service that is in trouble and might be defeated. For them, it is not malicious, it is not doxing, it is a pure business tactic where the market is won by sentiments and fears together.
Here are some of the sentiments;
People have spoken. As per the claim of the tracker site, 18,350 websites have migrated from WP Engine as of November 13, 2024, at the time of writing this article. On the other hand, claims of the site being a phishing site have also surfaced. Everything is heating up. Matt claimed that he is financially hurting WP Engine, yet this tracker site surfaced. The court has ordered the first hearing on the motion for preliminary injection is on 26th November 2024. The defender (Automattic) was asked to submit their response by 30th October and the Plaintiff (WP Engine) was asked to submit their reply on November 4th. The stage is set and we are not too far from the first hearing and how both parties will prove their claims.
Besides the market sentiments, the fears will continue to haunt WP Engine users and they might actually choose to switch the hosting. The number is likely to increase and it might fall under the “Business Tactics” and alright for most of the businesses. As for power and the battle between the powerful and the powerless that has been waging on since millennia, it is always that the powerless are crushed by the powerful. Right or wrong, good or bad, power is the only currency that weighs the heavies
