WordPress At War!

Following a (very public) recent spat between WordPress founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg, and WP Engine, we look at what’s happened and why, and what the effects have been WordPress users. 

WordPress and WP Engine 

To better understand the story, it may be a good idea to first look at the two sides in the dispute – who (and what) they are, and why they’re different. 

WordPress 

Most people are likely to be familiar with WordPress, the open-source content management system (CMS) that now powers over 40 per cent of websites globally. It was founded in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little as a fork of another blogging tool called b2/cafelog. Since its blogging platform beginnings, it has evolved into a versatile CMS and is used for everything from personal blogs to large corporate websites. WordPress.org is the official website where the open-source version of WordPress can be downloaded and is maintained by the broader WordPress community. WordPress’s co-founder Matt Mullenweg is also now the CEO of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, a commercial arm that provides hosting services for WordPress users. Mullenweg also founded (in 2010) the WordPress Foundation, which is a non-profit organisation to promote and protect the WordPress brand and support the open-source project’s development.