Automattic vs WP Engine

The many thousands of WordPress.com websites (like this one) are run on the servers owned by Automattic.

There is another option if you want to run WordPress. Host it elsewhere. You just download the WordPress files and run it wherever you want.

You can run WordPress on your own server. A server is just a computer with an extra bit of software. It’s not a big deal and you can set up a server in your bedroom. Seriously, you can. Apple makes a package that you can download and install on your computer and bingo! You have a server of your own.

Or you can do what most people do. You rent space on the servers of one of the many web hosts, install WordPress and run your site.

There is a third option. Some web hosts run WordPress themselves and all their customers use the WordPress that the web host installs.

You can see that it’s the way WordPress.com sites are run on Automattic’s servers. Only it’s a different company doing it.

If you go the route of installing WordPress yourself on a web host, then you get WordPress from the WordPress.org website.

This little graphic that I made shows the folder and file arrangement of just part of the WordPress code. If I opened up any of those little blue folders there are more files in there. It’s a lot of files.

And it is all free to download. The rules under which it is made free say that you the recipient are free to change the code. What you are not free to do is to change the code and then charge people for the changed version. That’s clear in the rules that allow you do download it in the first place.

‘Code’ means the essential core code in WordPress that are in the files and folders I showed in the graphic.

Beyond that there are plugins that extend core. If you design a plugin you can charge for that.

There are hundreds, maybe thousands of plugins in the WP Repository.

What if you are a web host with a business model like the third option I described? All your customers run WordPress that you the web host installs on your servers.

What if you use this business model?

What if you claim YOU ARE WordPress?

What if you try to cut Automattic out of the process completely?

What if you don’t pay a trademark licence fee to Automattic?

What if you don’t pay in kind by helping developing WordPress code at Automattic?

What happens if you pay for some WordPress events, but that’s pennies compared to.the billion dollar business you run off the back of WordPress?

What then?

Matt Mullenweg, the boss of Automattic, has been trying to get WP Engine to play ball. He has been asking them to pay the licence fee or pay a proper amount in time for developing WordPress.

Just a couple of days ago he made the saga public. Then he cut WP Engine off from the WordPress Repository. Then can’t download the latest version of `WordPress or plugins. Then he unblocked them for a grace period that ends tomorrow.

The Nitty Gritty

The cease and desist letter from WP Engine to Automattic Inc.

The cease and desist letter from Automattic Inc.to WPEngine, Inc.

You can hear Matt talk through this in detail at WCUS 2024 – An In-Person Q&A.