WordPress co-founder, Matt Mullenweg criticised WP Engine at the WordCamp US 2024 event, and his comments against the competing firm have subsequently received backlash.
Mullenweg, also the CEO of Automattic, clarified his opinions about WP Engine. He claims WP Engine has profited off of WordPress since 2010. He has also maintained that key WordPress features have been disabled, features which drove WordPress to the top. Mullenweg made these critical statements during WordCamp US 2024 held in Portland, Oregon. This event is a conference set up by the WordPress community to get together and share ideas.
The WordPress co-founder has claimed that WP Engine has benefited from the confusion between the non-existent connection between WordPress and WP Engine. Many have assumed that WP Engine is under WordPress as the company makes it seem like they are offering customers a product of WordPress. Taking an example from his personal life, Mullenweg says his mother had confused WP Engine being an official WordPress service.
Matt Mullenweg and his recently published blog post
After the first day of the conference concluded, Matt Mullenweg wrote a blog post going on a detailed tirade about WP Engine. In this blog post, he also went on record calling WP Engine a ‘cancer’ to WordPress. He has also extended his criticism towards Silver Lake, the private equity firm that controls the WP engine. He took the comparison between WP Engine and Automattic, stating that the former contributed only 40 hours a week. Meanwhile, the smaller-sized Automattic contributed back 3,915 hours weekly. Furthermore, he alleges that WP Engine has turned off the revision system which helped in correcting mistakes. So whatever mistake a user makes cannot be rectified.
Matt Mullenweg has advised WP Engine customers to get at least 3 revisions to be turned on. This could protect the customer by preventing any loss of anything important.
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