In a recent blog post and address at WordCamp US 2024, Matt Mullenweg, the co-creator of WordPress, did not mince words about WP Engine. He made it crystal clear: WP Engine is not WordPress.

Mullenweg went as far as to call WP Engine a “cancer to WordPress,” urging users to reconsider their hosting provider. This criticism is not just about branding confusion; it’s about a deeper issue—WP Engine’s profit-driven approach undermines the open-source values at the heart of WordPress. By prioritizing revenue over community contribution and user data protection, WP Engine’s practices pose a significant threat to the ecosystem that WordPress relies on. Mullenweg’s post and his call to action have sparked a broader conversation within the community about how companies like WP Engine exploit the WordPress name while giving little back in return.

The Heart of the Issue: WP Engine’s Disabling of Revisions

A key example of WP Engine’s divergence from WordPress ideals is its disabling of post revisions. Revisions are fundamental to WordPress’s promise of protecting user data. Every change made to a page or post is stored in the database, providing users the safety net to restore content if needed.

WP Engine turns this feature off across their 1.5 million WordPress installs. While customers can request that revisions be enabled, support only extends to three revisions, which are automatically deleted after 60 days. WP Engine even recommends customers use a “third-party editing system” if they need more extensive revision management.

The reason for this, as Mullenweg explained, is cost-saving. “They disable revisions because it costs them more money to store the history of the changes in the database, and they don’t want to spend that to protect your content,” Mullenweg contends. “It strikes to the very heart of what WordPress does, and they shatter it, the integrity of your content. If you make a mistake, you have no way to get your content back, breaking the core promise of what WordPress does, which is manage and protect your content.”

Matt Mullenweg’s Call to Action

At WordCamp US 2024, Mullenweg highlighted a startling fact: WP Engine contributes only 40 hours per week to the WordPress project, despite generating half a billion dollars in revenue—comparable to Automattic, which contributes 3,900 hours weekly.

This discrepancy illustrates how WP Engine exploits the WordPress brand for financial gain, while failing to give back to the community that made its business possible. Mullenweg’s message was clear: WordPress users need to “vote with their wallets” and support hosting providers that actively contribute to the health of the open-source ecosystem, such as Thexyz.

WP Engine’s Inferior Product

Aside from disabling revisions, WP Engine’s entire service undermines the core promises of WordPress. As Mullenweg noted in his blog post, WP Engine profits off user confusion, making customers believe they are receiving the true WordPress experience. In reality, they are being offered a stripped-down version that compromises the security and flexibility WordPress is known for.

For those using WP Engine, contacting support to turn on the limited revisions feature is an immediate step to protect your content. However, as Mullenweg said, switching hosts may be the better long-term solution to ensure you’re getting the full benefits of the open-source WordPress platform.

Why Thexyz Is a Better Choice

At Thexyz, we take a different approach. Not only do we respect the core principles of WordPress, but we also offer features that empower users to build and manage their websites with ease and flexibility. Here’s why Thexyz stands out as the superior choice for hosting:

  • Unlimited Revisions: Unlike WP Engine, Thexyz does not limit revisions. We believe that safeguarding your content is fundamental, and our hosting ensures that every change you make is tracked and reversible, preserving the integrity of your work.
  • Usage-Based Billing: Our flexible, scalable hosting model charges you only for the resources you use. Whether you’re running a small blog or a large e-commerce site, Thexyz’s pay-as-you-go approach allows you to manage costs effectively.
  • Premium WordPress Themes and Plugins: With Thexyz, you get access to premium WordPress tools, including the DIVI theme and the Gravity Forms plugin, at no additional cost. These tools enable beautiful design and advanced form-building capabilities, enhancing the functionality and appeal of your website.
  • Softaculous Premium: We offer the premium version of Softaculous, giving you one-click access to over 400 open-source applications. This includes easy installations for WordPress, Nextcloud, Drupal, Magento, and more, all managed directly from our cPanel interface.
  • Updated PHP Components: Thexyz ensures that our hosting environment remains secure and up-to-date. We use the latest versions of essential components like cPanel, Zend, phpMyAdmin, Apache, and cURL, providing better compatibility and security than other hosting providers.

As Matt Mullenweg put it, “WP Engine is a cancer to WordPress,” and unchecked, this kind of behavior will spread throughout the ecosystem. Hosting providers should support, not exploit, the platforms they are built on. By choosing hosts like Thexyz, you ensure that your content remains secure, you have access to premium tools, and you only pay for what you use. Most importantly, you are supporting an open-source ecosystem that will thrive for years to come.