Automattic's CMS empire shows cracks as WordPress share falls
After months of lawsuits, injunctions, plugin disputes, and public sparring between Automattic and WP Engine, WordPress is showing its first sustained market share decline in years.
Mullenweg.wtf
Mullenweg.wtf - One Man’s Epic Meltdown Chronicling the downfall and self-destruction of Matt Mullenweg and WordPress.
Latest posts
Automattic Planned to “Steal Every Single WP Site” From Hosts That Refused Trademark Deals, WP Engine Alleges in Latest Complaint
Newly unsealed passages cited in WP Engine’s complaint allege that Automattic categorized hosting companies as “friends,” “would-be friends,” and “charlatans,” and planned to “steal every single” site from those who refused a trademark deal.
Automattic Inc. Claims It Owns the Word 'Automatic'
In its trademark filing, Automattic lists the word “automatic” as a disclaimer, meaning an unregistrable word, “such as wording or a design that doesn’t indicate the source of your goods or services or is otherwise merely descriptive of them,” according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Why I joined FAIR
WordPress cannot—must not—continue at the whims of one centralized company or person. We’ve seen, time and again, the problems this can cause the project.
Mullenweg.wtf
Mullenweg.wtf is on hiatus. This website will remain online as a record of Mullenweg's unhinged attack on WordPress and its community. The WP Engine vs Mullenweg court case will drag on beyond 2026. I will return should anything spicy occur before the final verdict.
Mullenweg Says Lawsuits Could End WordPress
Matt Mullenweg commented that the conflict he initiated could eventually lead to the closure of WordPress.org. He claimed that the only way to end the conflict was for WP Engine to drop their lawsuit, which would have the effect of enabling Mullenweg to resume his campaign to drive WP Engine out of business.
WordPress drama latest: Leader Matt Mullenweg exiles five contributors
WordPress co-founder Matthew Mullenweg on Saturday deactivated the WordPress.org accounts of five members of the WordPress community, and justified his actions by saying it will encourage them to fork the open source content management system.
Another day of stochastic harassment for old time’s sake
This is tiresome, folks. It was tiresome when I was a part of the community. It was tiresome when Matt was building dramas on my back. It was tiresome when his fanboys joined right in.
WordPress is in trouble
Automattic noted it would focus its open source hours on “security and critical updates”. The other hours would be redirected to for-profit projects like WordPress.com. This means that the community will be expected to take up the slack if it wants WordPress to improve.
Matt Mullenweg deactivates WordPress contributor accounts over alleged fork plans
Automattic CEO and WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg has deactivated the accounts of several WordPress.org community members, two of whom he says planned to spearhead a new fork of the open source WordPress project.
Mullenweg Shuts Down WordPress Sustainability Team, Igniting Backlash
Veteran tech journalist Kara Swisher has described Matt Mullenweg’s move to shut down WordPress’s sustainability team as “bizarrely heinous behavior.”
Automattic cuts WordPress contribution hours, blames WP Engine
Automattic will only contribute 45 hours each week to ‘match’ the amount of time spent by third-party hosting platform WP Engine.
What drama should I create in 2025?
I’m very open to suggestions. Should we stop naming releases after jazz musicians and name them after Drake lyrics? Eliminate all dashboard notices? Take over any plugins into core? Change from blue to purple?
Breaking the Status Quo
I’ve often considered how the WordPress world “worked” unhealthy. I’ve spoken to many slightly outside of our industry over the past months about what was happening and several people, independent of each other, described WordPress as “a cult” to me. And I understand why.
WordPress.org statement threatens possible shutdown for all of 2025
Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg on Friday announced a shutdown of almost all services on WordPress.org, the open source project site that’s the home of the software, plugins, and the WordPress community, but was unclear on when the shutdown would end.
Mullenweg Disgusted & Sickened As WP Engine Regains Access
WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg expresses "disgust" at having to provide "free labor" to WP Engine, calls court decision a bad precedent.
Court Grants WP Engine Preliminary Injunction Against Automattic
The court determined that WP Engine’s evidence of harm, including the loss of a $40,000 client contract, was persuasive. Defendants countered with four arguments but “None is persuasive.” The court accepted that WPEngine will suffer irreparable harm without preliminary injunctive relief.
WordPress CEO Rage Quits Community Slack After Court Injunction
Automattic is ordered to undo several of the actions of its CEO Matt Mullenweg in its ongoing legal battle with WP Engine. “It's hard to imagine wanting to continue to working on WordPress after this," Mullenweg said in a community Slack message.
Judge hands WP Engine a win in legal fight with Automattic
Mullenweg and co ordered to restore WP Engine's access to wordpress.org and stop touching WordPress installations
Judge Sides With WP Engine Against Automattic & Mullenweg In WordPress Dispute
Court grants WP Engine's request for a preliminary injunction, handing Mullenweg and Automattic an across the board defeat
WordPress parent company must stop blocking WP Engine, judge rules
Automattic and its CEO Matt Mullenweg also have to quit interfering with WP Engine’s ACF plugin.
Court orders Automattic to restore WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org
The ruling orders Automattic to restore WP Engine’s access and control of ACF on WordPress.org.
WP Engine Vs Automattic: Judge Inclined To Grant Preliminary Injunction
Judge is inclined to grant preliminary injunction against Automattic, but WP Engine’s fight isn’t over yet
Judge Signals Support for WP Engine Injunction
Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín said she was “inclined to grant some sort of injunction” but described WP Engine’s proposed order as “exceedingly vague,” making it difficult to enforce.
WordPress.org Releases New ‘Secure Custom Fields’ Plugin With ACF Pro Features
Tim Brugman, a Full-Stack Developer, pointed out, “A8c’s _new_ SCF plugin deactivates Advanced Custom Fields PRO when it is activated. An action that is not allowed by the dot org Plugin Handbook.”
Transcript of the Hearing for Preliminary Injunction
An unofficial transcript of the WP Engine v Automattic & Matt Mullenweg preliminary injunction hearing on November 26, 2024.
WordPress.org Forks ACF Pro in Unprecedented Move Against WP Engine
Matt Mullenweg’s latest move in his battle with WP Engine raises questions about an open-source project seemingly endorsing the forking and redistribution of premium plugins without compensation or acknowledgment, potentially violating the GPL.
ACF Pro: Nulled by WordPress.org
ACF Pro is now available for download from WordPress.org under the name Secure Custom Fields. I take a look at this new addition to the WordPress plugin directory and wonder if this is a fork or a nulled plugin?
An in-kind donation and a long-time host
The drastic actions taken by Matt Mullenweg have caused immense stress and anxiety within the community. Even those who agree with Mullenweg in principle often find his actions confusing, at best, chaotic, at worst.
WP Engine Escalates Legal Battle With Automattic and Mullenweg
WP Engine escalated its Federal complaint by citing Automattic’s publication of the WP Engine Tracker website as evidence of intent to harm WP Engine and exposing customers to potential cybercrimes. The updated complaint incorporates recent actions by Mullenweg to further strengthen their case.
Matt Mullenweg Leaked 729K WP Engine Websites—Here’s What I Discovered
The inclusion of thousands of domains that no longer use WordPress raises significant questions about how long identifiable information about WordPress installations has been collected and stored.
WP Engine revs Automattic lawsuit with antitrust claim
WP Engine has already alleged that Automattic's conduct amounts to attempted extortion, libel, interference with contractual relations, computer fraud and abuse, and unfair competition, among others.
WP Engine Expands Legal Fight Against Automattic and Matt Mullenweg with Antitrust Claims
The amended complaint, which now spans 144 pages—up from its original 62—alleges that Automattic and Mullenweg are using the WordPress trademarks to block WP Engine from the WordPress community as a means to “extort monopolistic pricing,” violating United States antitrust laws.
WordPress’s Mullenweg Puts Lipstick on His WP Engine Argument
During the earlier part of the interview, before the focus turned to WP Engine, Mullenweg commented that because WordPress is open source it belongs to all of us who uses it. That’s true, but that doesn’t seem to be how he actually treats the WordPress ecosphere he’s created. It’s a fiefdom in which he wants to call all the shots, and community only seems to be legitimate to him if it’s a…
Automattic Faces Irony Of New WPEngineTracker Protest Site
In an ironic twist to the ongoing dispute between Automattic and WP Engine, a newly published website on WPEngineTracker.com is displaying a protest message against CEO Matt Mullenweg.
Core Contributors Voice Concerns Over Mullenweg’s Control and “Culture of Fear” in WordPress Community
Veteran WordPress core committers and contributors have described a “culture of fear” within the project, driven by co-founder Matt Mullenweg’s “outsized control” and the potentially career-ending consequences of opposing him. Many say the lack of formal governance has left them vulnerable to the whims of Mullenweg, whose recent actions have raised questions about the future direction of…
WordPress's Automattic openly tracks websites bailing from rival WP Engine
While data about WP Engine websites can be gathered from public sources, it's not clear whether the .csv file of WP Engine websites was obtained from a public source. There's some speculation that the data may have come from non-public WordPress.org access logs rather than DNS queries or a website crawler.
Down The Rabbit Hole - A Look At The WordPress Update API
A few weeks ago, I sat down with my WordPress installation to see how difficult it would be to actually use a different API endpoint entirely instead of the default WordPress.org site.
Did the WordPress Drama make things Worse for us?
In this video I am explaining the drama, but I am also sharing my opinion on how I think the WordPress founder is a bit hypocritical in some areas, and I offer some solutions for a better WordPress future.
Automattic Taunts WP Engine With Provocative Website
The first comment notes that the counter is incorrect because it claims to count websites that have left WP Engine but that it should be saying how many domains have left. The reason is because of the “websites” listed redirect to one domain, which means that the count is inflated.
A response to "Defending Open Source: Protecting the Future of WordPress"
This post is a response to “Defending Open Source: Protecting the Future of WordPress,” which was recently published on Automattic’s website as an explanation of the company’s ongoing dispute with WP Engine. I feel it’s important to issue a critical reading of Automattic’s post, as it doesn’t seem to offer much of a serious or objective examination of the issues at hand.
The WordPress war over… revisions?
To take Mullenweg’s argument about “bastardized simulacra” to its logical end, Mullenweg must believe that millions of customers have been wrong all along—they’ve somehow been duped. The product they’re using isn’t WordPress, even though that’s what they’re buying. And, what’s more, the changes WP Engine has made are so bad, so egregious, that virtually every major WordPress host does the exact…
Using WordPress is risky
This new legal filing makes it crystal clear that Mullenweg has sole discretion over who can access it. If he’s ever upset with you for any reason, he can turn off your access or take over your plugin. I think that should deeply frighten anyone using WordPress today.
WordPress Is On Dangerous Ground
I have personally been blocked on X/Twitter by Matt, Automattic, and by the WordPress account itself. Sadly, it's become somewhat of a badge of honour, meaning at least we went out standing up for what we believed in instead of staying silent.
WordPress cofounder asks court to dismiss WP Engine’s lawsuit
This very public spat has raised concerns among developers across the WordPress ecosystem who now worry whether they, too, could get cut off from WordPress. But Mullenweg doesn’t seem too worried about the impact.
Heartbroken
The response, though, was beyond the pale. I can’t even link to it, it was so vile and hateful. Matt (or someone working for Matt but I assume not) took the post of a little community of six hundred Twitter followers and little more than 1,000 people globally and viciously attacked it in overtly sexual and sexist language.
Matt Mullenweg says Automattic is ‘very short-staffed’ amid WordPress vs. WP Engine drama
After 159 Automattic employees took the first deal, which included six months of severance, Mullenweg posted another alignment offer on Automattic Slack on October 17. This second deal offered nine months of severance, but employees only had four hours to respond.
Plugins Under Impact
The ongoing dispute between WordPress and WP Engine has led to significant disruptions in the plugin ecosystem.
So Long WordPress
The utter hypocrisy of Matt Mullenweg’s actions isn’t really unsurprising to anyone who has watched Automattic for the last decade or more but it is my final straw.
WordPress forces user conf organizers to share social media credentials, arousing suspicions
A source familiar with Sydney WordCamp's operations told The Register that volunteers saw the takedown request as a personal threat – as non-compliance with the request would have led to them being forced from the event's organizing team.